Shredding of Yesterdays

Here's my "do" - doesn't it look great? The best part of this is, I hadn't even combed it after getting out of bed when my daughter caught me with the camera. See, before becoming an acrylics artist, hattigrace has been a hair artist. And, indeed to get a decent cut, etc., one needs a hair ARTIST.

I've been working at my desk. Condensed one plastic file box into another one. I'm shredding two years of receipts from Wyoming. As the last rent receipt went down the shredder, I felt a weight lift from my shoulders. No, that was a figure of speech. A load is lifting from my heart.

Life is so dratted interesting. And hard. Yet, we hang on to it with every shred of our being.

As I sit here feeling "lighter" somehow, I have to relate this story of a supernatural experience in real life:

I went to the meeting although the tiredness went through my bones and weighted them down like lead. I didn't want to be with people or around people. Have you ever been there? And had someone attach to you like glue on flypaper? Well, these wonderful folks did. They pastored a small church.

That particular night a guest was there from the prophetic school down the road about three hours. I was called out for what we call a "word." I went and stood there dreading what might be coming. You see, I had death hanging all over me. I only wanted to disappear.

Most of my young life, I laid in bed at night wishing I were dead. Years later, after I became a Christian I asked God to forgive me for treating the gift of me like it was nothing or something to be destroyed. Yet, after my son died, Death came back and trailed me like an old dog that you can't ever "get rid of." It tormented me, "Ha, ha, I didn't get you, but I got him." Anyone who is a parent knows that you would lay down your life for your child, no questions asked, so you can imagine what this did to me.

As I was called out, I dragged my body up to the front and lowered my head for prayer. All of a sudden it was like I went to another dimension. It was totally black with no presence of God, people, anything. I floated in that pool of blackness with my arms outspread and my legs as loose as if I were in water. The feeling of being TOTALLY without God was overwhelming. Then, from my gut a wrenching screaming came out, over and over and over, "I want to live, I want to live, I want to live." The presence of God returned and the absolute alone-ness left. Then I found myself back with me feet planted firmly on a carpeted floor.

I returned to my seat, weeping and sobbing which continued through the meeting much to my embarrasment. I left that little church with something inside me broken, yet freed from that black spector of death. I remain free to this day. And I fight for every day, I devour every day, I love every day no matter what it brings.

And that's the story. Some of you will probably think I'm nuttier than a fruitcake. Another might cry because you have been or are there as well. Anyroad, as 4D says, this shredding of yesterdays today has lifted something dark off of me as well, and reminded me of the crossroad for life where I made a choice. It's sometimes good to remember.