'I don't deserve you'

Last night I cried
Big, messy tears that ruined the makeup I was trying so carefully to apply moments before I was going to walk out of the house.
I cried because I wasn't feeling heard, felt like his every word was a rejection to my vulnerable heart.
I've been feeling that way a lot recently.
Since leaving PRBI almost a month ago, my little heart has been faltering trying to keep up with the pace and more often than not I crawl into bed exhausted. Frustrated at distance and feeling exposed and rubbed raw at whatever God is trying to teach me these days.
This morning I woke up after a fitful sleep where I tossed and turned restlessly after falling into a heap of exhaustion after an argument with someone I love. I felt weakness inside of me, my heart feeling tender in this new, hard stage of life where the last thing I wanted to do was get out of bed and work my way through the to-do list and the rough feeling of not enough and failure that keeps creeping up on me when I'm not looking.
I felt like writing a sign with the same words I spoke last night in a text message I'd written in the heat of my brokenness, wearing it's big bold letters around my neck: Be Gentle with me.
Because my heart is aching and I don't even know why.
Because transformation is happening even when I can't see results.
God is teaching me to lean into His strength and to create new patterns and break away old ruts and to stop resisting the hard and instead be open to what I can be taught in this intimate, vulnerable time.
And it's hard work.
The words I've been furiously writing have been more of a prayer than anything else. I've been curled over the notebook as if I am sheltering the words coming out, writing and writing and writing until there is only emptiness and stillness inside of me, begging and pleading and reflecting and analyzing and turning each story over and over in my hands looking for the grace that appears.
And the change, it isn't happening as fast as I want it to. It's been almost a month and my heart still hurts over letting go, over the weight of the things I've learned in the past year and how they shaped me, began working at changing the ruts in my life.
 This morning I woke up early and stumbled out of bed. I had my hands deep in dish water when this song came through my speakers. And I paused for a moment, letting the sun coming through the window fall on my face.
It's easy to become focused on the hard, the painful, the uncomfortable, the stretching.
In my grumbling and aching and crying I've heard His gentle voice asking me, "Isn't this enough?"
Over and over again I am choosing to say yes.
It's not what I want, but it's enough.
And even this I do not deserve.
And I am grateful.