Drying Out

It's ugly.

It's messy. 

It's confusing. 

It's an emptying. 

But not a forced emptying on my part. Rather a passive emptying. I will use an analogy that has become quite useful in my processing: 

I am a well and desire to be full of water. Effort has been spent finding bucket after bucket to fill my rather large well. 

I'm tired. 

I'm still not full. 

And I'm depleted. 

Done trying. 

No more buckets. 

It's as if I am finally standing still and watching my well slowly dry out and all of my vain efforts of "filling" it becoming useless. 

It's a process of emptying. 

I've spent years trying to keep myself full. Never wanting to truly see what lies at the bottom of the well. Full for others. Full to keep my needs at a distance. Full to keep people at a distance. While at the same time claiming closeness. And perhaps sometimes there was closeness, but it never satisfied because it wasn't always genuine. I would become frustrated. I was frustrated because I would begin to hand others buckets as well hoping that maybe they had enough endurance to fill my well. But they couldn't. 

These efforts caused me to feel even more alone. Alone in my filling. Alone in my efforts. Hoping for that person/circumstance who would come with a large bucket and save me from my my fear of emptiness. 

I longed for that. 

I longed to be at peace.... at rest... whole..... full. 

I've prayed for this fulfillment while at the same time throwing bucket after bucket of water into my well. But God has taken my buckets (tweetable). haha! He has taken them away one by one. Now I am in the midst of waiting. Waiting for my well to dry out, and to finally see what lies at the bottom. 

Waiting for God to fill. 

Waiting for God to act. 

And in a way, He is. He is taking away me efforts, my clutches, my false senses of security. 

And so I wait. But the waiting is painful. Especially when all of the survival mechanisms that I have adopted are seeking to quench my thirst and fill my well.

However, my soul reminds me that if I drink this water, I will only be thirsty again. 

So I wait..... And that's where I am at....... waiting and clinging to the promise that "whoever drinks the water He gives me will never thirst. Indeed the water He gives me will become in me a spring of water welling up to eternal life." 

This is my promise. 

My hope. 

My Salvation. 

He is my Living Water.