My iPod is blaring tunes from, "Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot," compliments of Sting. Problem is, if I let my soul be my guide today, I'm going down. Further down. Further in. And I'm scared to death.

I've never felt this vulnerable. Exposed. Raw. Without bearings. I've never felt like such a child...such an infant, really. I am sad. I am angry. All I want to do is be held. All I know to say is, "Help me."

I woke this morning asking God what prayer was? Who He was? How in the world I got on this Journey? How in the world my surface interactions with it/Him have kept me in the game? There have been external professions and promises and heights of jubilation. But there has lacked an inward journey. There has lacked a soul willing to be piloted inward. Or a Pilot, with a soul willing to go inward.

This new place of surrender is overwhelming and uncomfortable and beyond anything I've ever known. I'm scared I won't come back. I'm scared I wasn't anywhere to start with.

To be honest, the Lentin season didn't do much for me. I justified it by saying I recognize Jesus' saving death and resurrection every day. Why should I feel a compulsion to join cultural Christianity's holiday recognition (even though the Easter bunny perk is pretty tempting...joke)? What's been striking though, is how much the post-Easter week has brought to my attention. What would this week look like were we one of Jesus' disciples? How would it feel to 'know' now that his Story was true, but to embark on a telling of that Story to the world? To your neighbors, family, enemies? Would you quit your job? Go to the mountains to pray? Would you schedule a meeting to create a strategy, or come-up with a church name? Would you cry that he was gone...begging his willingness to return? Or maybe cry in joy that he was here...allowing life as you now know it to truly be Life?

For me, I think I'd be overwhelmed. I think I am overwhelmed. The cost has been paid...the "proof" laid before us. But now the question is can we believe? Are we willing to follow? The Journey has been paved before us. The journey to the end in some ways, but the journey to the beginning in many others. What does it look like, why does it hurt so bad, and how long will it last? How much further down can we travel, God? How much further in can we bear? Why must we go? And to where, O Lord, is it that You're going?

"If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.” Luke 9:23-24

Lead me, Father. Hold me. I want to come after you, but I know not the way. I need You. Help me.