knowledge that holds true.

Sometimes I think I'm in love. I feel it in every possible way. I miss Him when I'm away from Him, I want to talk to Him all the time, and I love being in His arms. And then other times I call and call and He doesn't pick up. Sometimes I ask Him for something, something simple, and He doesn't give it to me. I get so angry. Why can't he talk to me more? What's wrong with me?

And that's when I know that I am more in love with myself than with Him. Yet, without Him without His love I become a shell. I've become who I am instead of looking forward to what I could be. You see, with Him anything was possible. I believed in beauty. Not only did I believe it but I experienced it, I tasted it, and let it lay still in the loose grasp of my hands.

But I let it slip. I look at my hands and they're dirty, calloused, hard. I've turned my head so many times looking for beauty my neck hurts. I LOVE YOU! Where are you? Why have you gone? And it is in my desperate moments that I especially feel the ache of His absence. We were so close. I felt surrounded, encapsulated, safe, worthy, wanted, loved. And now I feel nothing. And the nothing hurts so much more because I have a gaping cavity where the everything used to be.

It stretched me to the point where I no longer just felt His love I felt the love of everyone around me. When I smiled I didn't just use my mouth mechanically, my eyes smiled too. When I saw a child I wanted to nurture it. When I saw someone in pain I wanted to ease it. When I saw others newly in love my happiness would spill out onto my cheeks. My love was free.

Now I am chained and bound to feelings. Feelings of doubt, of abandonment, of a false sense of being, feelings of feelings of feelings. I HATE feelings. You see, when I was in love with Him it was more than a feeling of contentment. In fact it surpassed all feeling, it was pure fact. My love was so much a part of me as my hand or leg is. I breathed it, cherished it, acknowledged it and let it flow past my knowledge until it permeated every part of being. My love slipped past my fingers, down my legs, and unto the ground I walked on. That way every step I took was one where I stepped in love.

And the best thing of all was when people talked to me they too sometimes stepped in the love and I would see the love go up their legs, reach to the tips of their hair and disappear into their eyes. And then as I talked to them I would witness the love that I had shine in their eyes.

But now when I walk my love doesn't seep out. My eyes don't shine with smiles. And my heart doesn't get twinges of compassion. I am a shell, exposed and empty. With time, sand has worn me down and eroded my edges. Sometimes when I am on my knees pleading with Him for the love I used to have I hear Him whisper. Tears prick my eyes and it is a feeling of exquisite beauty and acute longing for what we once shared. But I ignore my feelings and instead dwell on the KNOWLEDGE of His presence and love.

Lord, restore to me the joy of your salvation.