Fragile

Fragile. That's such a beautiful, delicate word. It sounds like a white porcelain figure, gently draped in a pale blue china gown, one whisper-thin hand outstretched to shield her pure, helpless face. It's a word that invites you to care for the fragile one, to guard her and protect her from anything that could shatter her.

Fragile. It certainly isn't a word that applies to plump college students with loud slappy sandals, corny jokes and enthusiastic giggles.

Or is it?

Sometimes, like now, I go through periods where fragile is the only word I can dredge up to describe my internal state. On the outside, I look fine. I'm round and healthy, moderately well-dressed, always with a positive can-do attitude (or a sympathetic complaint, if the situation calls for it). I get good grades, make honor lists, get lots of good work done, and try to make life better for everyone around me. I look like a bright-eyed, motivated girl.

But inside, I feel myself churning, never staying still or quiet for a moment, rolling and tossing with thoughts that shake and slam and batter me day and night. I wake up and fall asleep with my mind boiling - works and grace, faith and doubt, vision and contentment, purpose and uselessness, beauty and ugliness - things just mix together into a confusion of not knowing who I am, why I'm here, or where I'm going.

I need more of God. I need Him so much. During these long days of cramming my head full of (ultimately worthless) knowledge, I lose sight of Him in the dark waves of busyness and exhaustion that keep rising and breaking over my head every night. I get to the end of each day and cry out in the darkness - where is He? When did I become disconnected from Him? Where has my wicked heart taken me, this place where I can't find Him when I need Him so much?

Why do I stagger blindly through each day, trying to do my very best and knowing so bitterly that my best can never measure up to His holiness? Didn't I learn long ago that it is His grace that carries me, not my own? Why then do I keep going back to the works and trying to somehow make myself good enough to merit His favor, then collapsing exhausted at the end of each day with nothing but a broken trail of failures behind me?

This isn't how I want to be. I want to be strong, to shine brightly with a Christlike glow that warms and heals those around me - not to be the fragile one needing the warmth and healing. Somehow I've gotten off track, looking for strength in myself, in my own righteousness, which is a very shallow reserve indeed; and that reserve is completely drained. I'm not glowing much these days.

My Father, my God, I have gotten off the path somehow and I need Your help to get back - please show me how to rest in Your provision and grace, not to rely on my own feeble strength. Please give me the peace that I so desperately need!