Empty Hands

My weekend was pretty much consumed with soul care -- my own soul care. And this place of intimate nurture, guidance and support is something for which I lack adequate words of gratitude.

The state of my soul and my being able to see it so clearly over the past several months has been a source of deep pain for me. You see, while God -- the Great I AM, has chosen to allow me insight into my soul -- a view into the condition of my soul -- he has not and will not let me take part in the healing of my soul -- into how my soul becomes less Donell and more like God, like Christ -- let's just say it -- more holy or divine.

There are not very many individuals who have been giften with the ability to see into the soul of another human being. I am amazed by this -- in a state of awe of this. And yet, what amazes me even more -- what brings me to my knees even more -- is my spiritual director's ability to sit with me and love me even as she sees the condition of my soul. Okay, and here comes what makes me want to lay postrate before God, she can see the very gifts God has given me -- the deep yearnings within my soul that God alone planted there. She can name them, claim them and hold them for me because right now I am simply not strong enough to hold it all for myself.

More than that, God doesn't want me to hold anything right now. God wants me to simply be -- or more precisely to rest in Him as he births in me -- deep within me -- the I AM within me -- the God within me. To do that, I must release all that I have in my hands. I must be in this place with empty hands.

My dear friends, laying down my primary call was what I thought the most difficult thing God had yet asked me to do. To empty my hands and, indeed, my life, of everything is incredibly difficult and painful. I feel very vulnerable and empty. And that is precisely what God intends for me now as I continue to journey through what has been a very long dark night of the soul. I must become nothing -- no thing -- even as God whonames himself only I AM (no name, no thing) has become nothing -- or no thing because there isn't one name or thing that can adequately capture who or what he is. Just as God in this dark night journey has stripped away all my former knowings of him so that he could become no thing or more accurately ALL to me, he strips me of all things that are associated with my former self -- the personality that is Donell -- so that he can bring forth into being the I AM that has all along been within me but that had no pathway to be brought forth because my own identity (or personality) was blocking the way. This is so painful and so hard and yet this is what I have asked God to do with me for many, many years and is truly my heart's desire -- to become holy as He is holy. So I will be faithful and more than that -- I will remain faithful. And I will rest in Him and Him alone.

One of first things I wrote to you all about at the very beginning of Lent was that the beauty of Lent -- or the gift or purpose of Lent -- was clean hands and a pure heart so that in order to more fully celebrate the Resurrection. In order to have those clean hands and receive a pure heart, I must be empty handed. There is no other way.

I covet your prayers, my friends, as I continue to journey through my dark night experience empty-handed but alive -- or becoming alive! -- in His hands.

I am right where I need to be! Praise be to God!

So what about you, my friends? Are you right where God wants you to be? Why or why not? I have come to see that this matters deeply for it is a matter of the soul.