Guarding My Heart

A very long time ago, when we hardly knew each other, an exchange got going on a listserve that we all participated in. Things got a little intense and a little personal and when it was all over and done with, the focus came to be pretty negatively directed at Himself. He ended up getting pretty slammed.

I remember that day when I signed on and read the message He'd sent that said, "I have a real life; important work to do. I don't need this. I won't be back." My heart sank. I picked up my phone and dialed. T picked it up, and I asked her if He was alright. She told me that He was just sitting in the chair -- not talking -- just staring into space.

She handed Him the phone, and for the next I don't know how long I mostly listened, and tried to talk Him back into Himself. I promised Him that day that I'd always come after Him, always come and find Him no matter how lost and alone He might feel.

That's been my committment: to be there, to pay attention, to listen intently, to wait, to soothe, to hold, to try (in the best way I know) to make it right. It is, when it comes down to it, what slaves do: to simply be present.

But I've fallen short of that promise and committment in a thousand large and small ways in the last weeks and months. I've withdrawn, not physically, but emotionally; pulled my heart away.

There are, I suppose, explanations for it -- but no valid excuses. I've chosen to protect myself rather than to risk and trust. I've felt distance, and in response, I've created even more. I've wanted Him to "come in after me," and somehow find a way to bring me back to the safety that I once felt. Wanting that, I keep catching myself setting up checks and tests; wondering if He will see this or that, and react, notice, respond. It is a foolish, childish, peevish sort of game.

I need to set the tests for myself -- find ways to create not guardedness but openess; not distance but presence, not wanting from but wanting to...

I want my 'slave heart' back.

swan