Pit Dwelling

Have you ever watched small children play make believe?  They are so intensely involved in their pretend life that they  act and believe that they are the character that they imagine.  It is sweet when you are three years old, but it loses it's luster when you are pretending to be someone you're not as an adult.

I sit smiling in a room full of friends speaking about their children, and I add bits of knowledge from my nursing experience, and from what people have told me, and I pretend that it doesn't rip me apart on the inside that I cannot truly participate in the conversation from a mothers perspective.  I tell a stranger, no we don't have kids yet, we are waiting for my husband to finish his masters- smile big and walk away. I smile and sweetly say hello to people at work, when I have unforgiveness in my heart for the way myself and others I work with have been treated.  I work out, eat healthy, put on my prettiest outfit, slap on some lip gloss, and a smile, and go trotting out into the world like I have it all together when on the inside I am a broken mess who has spent most of her last 5 years dwelling in a pit of mud and mire.

  Recently I was called out about my pretending.  Someone close to me got close enough to look through my imaginary persona and see where I really was.  She pointed out that I have become really good at pretending that I am okay. She is right, and I even took a small amount of pride in the fact that I can easily fool people into my make believe.  But, when God got me alone after that conversation, it wasn't an easy pill to swallow. 

I am reading a book by Beth Moore called "Get out of That Pit", and ironically I started this book the day before I had the above mentioned conversation.  The true reality of where I am is that I have been in and out of pits for the past 5 years.  There are days when the smiling, joyful girl you run into is truly where I am, but on most days you can find me at the bottom of a muddy pit desperately trying to dig my way out.    There are three ways to get into a pit, to be thrown in by tragedy or difficulty in life, to slip in- inadvertently allow yourself to get too close to sin, or to jump in by blatantly sinning.  There are many ways into a pit, but for me I have been thrown in and slipped in.

Beth Moore says " A pit is when you feel stuck.  Isaiah 42:22 says that a pit is a place where you feel trapped.  You tend to feel your only options are to kick and scream, hoping your flailing can help you escape, or submit." 
" One way you can know you're in a pit is that you feel ineffective and utterly powerless against the attack of the enemy.  You can't stand up to assaults, trials, or temptations because your feet are in the mud and the mire."
" The close confinement of a pit exhausts us with the endless echo of self- absorption. Visibility extends no further than six inches from our noses.  We can't see out, so we turn our sights in."
"We can be young and yet feel old. Heavy laden. Burdened. In a pit where vision is lost and dreams are foolishness."

I read these words and watched as they called out every emotion that I have experienced: heavy, burdened, old, feeling stuck, kicking and screaming to get out, feeling powerless against the enemy, being self absorbed in the pain of my pit and not being able to see past the end of my own nose. I truly believe as Christians we will find ourselves often falling into the pits of life.  It gives me comfort that one of the Godliest women I have ever heard of, Beth Moore, considers herself a pit dweller. 

The relief is that God did not intend for us to stay in the pit.  " All image- bearers of God were intended to overflow with effervescent life, stirring and spilling with God- given vision. That's what you miss in the pit." 

When I allow myself to dwell in the pit of hurt that life has handed me I miss the vision and plan that God has given me, to live a life full of purpose and serve him in the Light.  " Satan knows that deep in our hearts we're so fragile and injured by life that his faintest whisper will talk us into feeling guilty even when we're not."  I often beat myself up for my faults, for falling short of perfection, I allow Satan to convince me that I should be strong enough to get myself out of the pit, and when inevitably I see that I am not, I am mad at myself for not being strong enough. 

The truth that sets me free is that I don't have to stay in the pit because I serve a God who is strong enough to pull me out.  I serve a God that takes a pit that Satan has placed strategically in front of me and uses it for His good and His glory. Genesis 50:20 " You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives." God intends to give me a hope and a future.  He is using the pits of my life for good and to accomplish what is being done now in my life.  He is working to give me the effervescent life .  God is using the story of my pits to reach others dwelling in the pit with me.  And, God willing to save many lives.