The dark place.

One of my favorite shows these days is Grey's Anatomy. It is, in essence, a glorified soap opera set in a Seattle hospital. A show about the life's of the people working there. I like how it deals with the drama in a humorous way, often making me laugh out loud. But it also looks at the deeper issues that we all have; our loves, securities and insecurities and how we have been molded by the past into who we are today.
Two of the characters, Christina and Meredith, have a close friendship. They work together and share most of what they go through on a daily basis with each other. They have an agreement between them that when they are at their personal lowest they will at least acknowledge it to the other. When one asks, 'Are you in the dark place?' , the other must answer honestly. They've agreed on this so that at least one other person will know. Not to fix, but to understand where they are at. It's a quality in their friendship that I admire and covet for my own life. To have one person that knows and understands and will see when I am in the 'dark place'.

I've come to an epiphany about myself in the last couple of months that I have been on my own. This loneliness, this sadness that I often feel, is as familiar to me as my own hands. It is exactly the feeling that I have had as a child, hiding in the cupboard or closet of the kitchen, waiting for my mother or father to acknowledge my presence and the sorrow I was in. Again when I was a teenager, trying to decide what I should do with my life and not having any of the tools and support of family to determine that. In my marriage, where I have often been alone I've expected my husband to 'see' and understand in a way that was often unreasonable.

There is a place inside of me; the dark place, that no one can see and understand.

I've wondered why, in these last months, God has given this to me. Why, because I am, or can be, a happy and easy going person. And yet I have this deep well in me? I know there are many who would say that it is the need for God in me, but then my question to them is, 'why doesn't he fill it?' He certainly has been invited to do so.

In the last couple of months I've thrown myself into the pit of this despair and loneliness. I know there is nothing that can fill it. Believe me I've tried. So now I've left my husband and the hopes that I had for my marriage, my children, my home (and all my dreams for it). I have my clothing and a few of my possessions but nothing of any significance that belongs to me. These losses are all by my choice for sure, in the desire to find out what the need is you have to give up everything that you've been using to fill the need, the things that are not working.

I'm working through my anger at God. Yes, my anger, because I feel that although I've been faithful to Him, He has cursed me. Years of prayer about this need have gone unanswered and I wonder if I can't turn to Him then who? Who do you turn to when the God of the universe, the creator of all things, doesn't hear? And yet I can't deny that He is still the one I must go to.

In this dark place, this dark place of despair, I long for the day that hope returns. To know that there will come a morning when the darkness is lifted and the sun will shine again. To learn to live with the dark place, even to embrace it as a gift that God has given me. To share in His sorrow.

For now, the darkness is always present.