Do you ever get that gnawing in your stomach that just doesn't seem to want to let go?  

I do.

It starts with a confession.  To yourself.  Whispered.  Small.

That maybe there's something that needs to be brought into the light- something you've been hiding and burying.

It's there in the fog.  Lingering.  Showing up in the quiet.  Hurting.  Aching.  Restless.

It's there in the questions you are afraid to ask.

Right now in my life I am actually pretty content.  I'm sing-songy and busy.  I have time to write music and to do art.  I am smiling most days, loving, and my life is full.  I laugh just about everyday.  But that is my nature.  Even when things are hard, I like to smile and laugh.

And Yet. 

I notice small things about my life- places where I'm running away from feelings and old memories or dreams that are difficult and dark about losing friends and friends' drug addictions.

It's interesting how I can be simultaneously 'okay' and still have this broken in me.

There are times when I get kind of side-swiped by that raw hurt that takes my breath away and then I'm running through a million google searches that have to do with hurt and broken hopes and dreams.  Seriously I think my google search history could be a good indicator of whats really going on with my heart, what I'm longing for, and what questions I'm asking in my broken.

Not all of it is bad.  I mean I recently searched "how to roast potatoes".  Life as a modern day woman.

But there are other searches that pierce deep down and tell a different story.  It's odd how the internet knows so many things about me.

When I ask questions in life, I want an answer.

Sometimes the answer God gives me is some form of: trust, wait, rest, be still.  

I don't always like these answers because they're not concrete in the sense I want them to be.  They're not a sentence that tell me how a certain circumstance will roll out, and they don't immediately fix what is going on.

But after I've done all the things I seem to do to keep from doing to avoid asking God like watching heaps of netflixs or googling articles about whatever current problem I'm facing, I kind of get exhausted by the meaningless of all 'my methods' and I am eager to return to what is better.

Netflix doesn't break me.  Google is usually a useful tool.  However, at times these only serve to convince me that after the fifth episode or the seventh googled article I might need an answer that an episode on netflix or a google search can't supply.  Many of my coping mechanisms are not inherently wrong on their own.  On a good day I could watch an episode of a show and feel inspired.  On a good day one google article might point me in a good direction (although this week I had myself convinced I was experiencing heart failure and not a bad asthma attack- it was the latter).

I know in my heart when I need to go to God- when I need something outside myself and all my human reasoning has been wasted.

Last night I finally just closed my laptop, shut down my phone and opened the Bible and read.  I knew the the utter exhaustion and hopelessness of my circular questioning could only be met by words that were breathed by someone other than a human and as I read the word of God, I finally felt a small bit of light touch those dark places that hover in my dreams and in the cracks and corners of my waking.

I finally felt a glimmer of peace, that voice of God that says, trust, wait, rest, be still.

"Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from him.  Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken.  My salvation and my honour depend on God; he is my mighty rock, my refuge.  Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge." Psalm 62: 5-8

Rest, friends,