Body Bruising

I woke up this morning at 4:30 and realized that another "carbo-hell week" was coming to an end.  There is a settling in my brain.  There is a sense that the drugs that had a vicious hold of me are slithering away. 

I can think a little clearer.

One part of my brain that seems to still work within the confines of these drugs and pain and odd sensations - is music.  It appears one must be careful what music one pours into one's head when young - it seems it is all that works when your brain is shutting down and pointing towards "empty".  

I have an odd relationship to music - I like a lot of genres, but just certain things in those certain genres.  For instance, I like some Johnny Cash, but not until the last 10 years.  And then only some.  I like a lot of classical - I have two little  granddaughters - then 3 years old - that try desperately to sing along with the "Hallelujah Chorus" in Handel's Messiah.  They loved it.  

I'm not a music student by any means - I just like what I like and move on to the next musical love obsession. 

One that fits that forum well is U2 - loved their early works and still hold Rattle and Hum as one of the best all time "albums".  I don't pay so much attention to the rest of their musical outpourings of late.   

One song that kept standing out this past week in my mind is "With or Without You"...... I can't live, with or without you.....

See the stone set in your eyes, see the thorn twist in your side
I wait for you

Sleight of hand and twist of fate, On a bed of nails she makes me wait
And I wait without you

With or without you
With or without you

Through the storm we reach the shore, You give it all but I want more
And I'm waiting for you

With or without you
With or without you
I can't live
With or without you

My hands are tied, My body bruised, she's got me with
Nothing to win and - Nothing left to lose

And you give yourself away

with or without you....

Whether we are talking about disease here needing the drugs, whether we are talking about my need for another one close by that was filling me full with these drugs while I laid on that bed of nails, all to 'body bruise' out the vestiges left with this disease, I don't know.

It leaves you with a haggard feeling - a just barely escaped feeling.  

I do know my brain, during this past week in some insane fashion, sang it to God a lot -  I wait for You - with or without You - and whether You are close as you were with John on the isle of Patmus, or whether You are far away as You were with Job - yet there all the time, I know You are there.  

I know You care, and I know that there is no pain, nor bed of nails, nor body bruise that can take You away whether You feel close nor not.

I've had an odd musical obsession with God all these years as well - I know what I know what I know, and I know what He says in the Text.  

I can't live, with or without You.  

Sometimes in pain God seems so close.  Other times, in pain, God seems light years away. 

But He is the River, the Tree, the Shepherd, the Rock, The I Am that I Am.  I don't understand it, but He Is.  Whether life is good and we have all that we want for fulfillment, or whether it is painful and we feel robbed and cheated at times and hurt and body bruised.  

He Is.