Standing in the Need of ...

"Not my brother, nor my sister, but it's me, O Lord, Standin' in the need of prayer;

Not my brother, nor my sister, but it's me, O Lord, Standin' in the need of prayer.

It's me, It's me,  it's me, O Lord, Standin' in the need of prayer; It's me, It's me, it's me, O Lord Standin' in the need of prayer. 

Escaping from a made-up world took a long time! I avoided both the mundane and esoteric things that made up my life.   In fact, I became an expert at avoiding life. "Manana, Manana" became my mantra.  I just wasn't capable of facing the hard truths, so I escaped into the world peopled with contrived characters.  Why has it taken this long?  Geez! A raft of reasons floats by, buoyed by time, situation, and circumstance. 

Ignorance (didn't know any better); fears (never to see the light of day because they may be worse than I'd even imagined); cowardice (not in a keep-a-stiff-upper-lip-culture1), and a hundred variations kept each other company in my mind and heart.  Avoidance also reared her disingenuous head.  More of a "Manana, Manana" than anything else.  Or a defiant Rhett Butler pronouncing, "I don't give a damn," but not really meaning it.  Or something in between.

Most significantly, I immersed myself in books, predominantly novels, and escaped from the real world by engaging my mind in myriad machinations.  They produced problems but allowed me to circumlocute between the real world and a fanciful one.  What a mess!  And like the "Begats" in the Book of Numbers, I "birthed" an army of reasons, like a forager or nomad for years. Way too many years.   The days of reckoning crept in on "little cat feet" of which Carl Sandburg, poet laureate of Illinois, wrote in "Fog." 

"The fog comes on little cat feet

It sits looking

over city and harbor

on silent haunces

and then moves on."

Finally, I had to face the mess artfulness had created  All these years, I had been fooling myself.  Lord, help me! Self-awareness emerged when I truly acknowledged and accepted my rightful relationship with God.  I remembered Him speaking as I prepared a sermon early in my Ministry titled,  "Dorothie, I Am God, and You're Not!"  

I heard Him.  He even graced me with the ability to write and deliver that Message to congregants.  Well-received? Yes!  The problem, however, centered on me.  I really didn't get it! Not really! Poor me, I thought I was delivering wisdom, or good advice at least, to others.  And I was.  Except that I lacked the spiritual insight to understand that I was its primary recipient.  Lord, help me, please!

My goodness.  I was a kitten entangled in a ball of yarn.  To put it mildly, I had to grapple with a conundrum bigger than life itself.  When would I, could I, release my so-called self-control to God? There, I'd asked it.  Introspection and purging followed.  For how long?  I don't know.  But I do know that when total cleansing of self had run its course, I felt as I've done when the fever breaks! Every aperture opens and I inhale the cleansing breath of healing, wholeness, and wellness.

Praise the Lord! Hallelujah! "Not my brother, nor my sister, but it's me, O Lord, Standin' in the need of payer."