Fifteen Minutes From The Edge

I have something to share. I may be taking a chance on someone not wanting to be around me anymore, or much less let me lead a bible study. But I have to be honest. And I have to not care about the approval of others. So here goes....

Sometimes I feel like I'm fifteen minutes away from insanity. Fifteen minutes from when I would be considered totally crazy. I am fifteen minutes from the edge of the waterfall that I feel like I'm going over. Maybe not even that long. I am just a few minutes from ‘my cheese sliding off my cracker,’ as one of my favorite authors puts it. I desperately am hanging on by a thread most of the time. Yes, I am one of those really needy people. I constantly feel I’m just about to lose it: my mind, my sanity, and my faculties. I’m just on the edge of, what is that reality show, ‘Snapped?’ Maybe not murdering anyone like that show or anything, but maybe the death of my soul. I’m just a few minutes from the tree branch I’m hanging onto from snapping and me falling into the abyss.

What makes me that way? Why do I feel this way so often? And more important, what keeps it from happening?

Well I guess it’s that I am just a ragamuffin. I’m a barefoot little orphan-feeling girl with a dirty face, dressed in raggedy clothes, who is looking for her Abba to claim her. A little child who’s messed up over and over again and feels that she can’t go home. She tries so hard in her own strength and just fails again and again. She knows who her daddy is and knows he will find her. She knows she can climb up in his loving lap and he will lovingly clean her up again, as he always does. But she was so close to not going back to him. She was so close to lying in the mud with the pigs and giving up and being trampled down by the bullies that run over her so often. See--she is just 15 minutes away from losing it.

I would like to be victorious, like so many Christians are. Or at least appear they are. I want to claim "Victory in Jesus,” when the truth is sometimes, I don’t feel victorious at all. Oh, I want everyone to think I’m so strong in the Lord and confess all the time that, "I trust God will work everything out." I try to appear as that stable Christian because I want everyone to have nice thoughts of me. (Needing that approval again.) But the truth is, I’m not. I am desperate for my Jesus. He is the very air I breathe. Every hour I need Him. Every moment of everyday. I am so needy that I can’t even make it in those 15 minutes from insanity. I know that. He knows that. He comes and rescues me usually as the fifteen minutes is running out. He wants me to fall over the edge of the waterfall I’m swimming fervently away from. He wants me to just let go because his righteous right hand, a very large one indeed, is at the bottom of the waterfall to catch me. He’s not going to let me fall into the maelstrom of my desperation below.

He keeps me sane because for some odd reason that I can’t figure out He loves me. He loves loves loves me. As I am. Just as I am, and not as I should be. And even more insane is that He wants me; to use me to show others His love. Me--the desperate little ragamuffin girl, who forgets so often whose child she is. The one He pursues with his infinite, unfailing love to remind her she belongs to Him and He will not ever, ever leave her or disown her.

A few days ago I posted this verse: “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” (Isaiah 41:10 NIV) I don’t know why I posted it except that it was a verse I love and wanted to share it. And then I found myself asking God to hold me in his hand last night… to catch me because I felt like I was falling over the edge and about to lose my sanity. I forgot that I had posted this particular verse until I prayed last night. He brought it to my mind that I had read it a few days back and had prayed it. I love it when He does that. He caught me again in the nick of time from my 15 minutes till madness.

One more thing: I broke down in church yesterday. Really sobbed before the Lord. A few noticed, most didn't, as I didn't want anyone to see me. I don’t want anyone to be burdened with my excessive neediness (again), so I left fairly quickly. Thank you to those who did notice and hugged me and patted me on my shoulder. To those who didn't notice, that’s okay, it’s not all about me, I know that. Anyway, yesterday I was 15 minutes from the edge… I was despondent. And I looked up the definition of the word ‘despondent’ and it’s synonyms. I found the word ‘woebegone.’ I had never heard that word before. I thought it was an odd word because it is a compound word of 3 words. Woe be gone. I found it ironic that a word that says that means the opposite. It means bleak, grief-stricken, down-trodden, etc. I posted it on my Facebook and then it became my prayer. Lord please let the woe be gone. And then, even a declaration to the enemy: "Woe be gone! In Jesus' Name." The Lord was there of course, again with his gracious, righteous right hand, catching me in those few minutes from the edge. This needy ragamuffin girl was caught once again in her loving Abba’s arms.

Thank you my sweet Jesus. Make me always desperate for you, especially when I'm fifteen minutes from the edge. I love you my Abba.

Your Ragamuffin Girl