You Are My Hiding Place O Lord

I find myself yearning more and more for you. 
I find myself wanting to understand your mystery more and more, yet I realize it is well beyond what I could every intellectually, emotionally or spiritually grasp, especially in my brokeness.
I am sometimes puzzled by you.  Are you there?  Are you working through me and others?
But what about the pain?  Why does it have to linger?  Why does it have to haunt? Is there a lesson you are trying to get me to understand?  Are you trying to get me to such a  wretchedly humble state of being, that I finally give up, that I surrender, because even though I try to control, I cannot?

This has lead me to want to hide in you Lord.  I find myself longing to sit in stillness with you for longer and longer periods of time.  Hiding in your wounds gives me peace and I am slowly starting to see why so many Saints had to spend long periods of time in intense prayer with you, in order to know more clearly who you made them to be, in order for them to deal with the disappointments of themselves, others and the world.  I see that this helped them to realize who they truly were in you.  Will you reveal that to me Lord?  I know our dear brother, Francis asked you many times in the caves of Mt. Subasio, "Who I am Lord? "And, Who are You?"  I suddenly find myself asking you this same question, "Who I am?"  "What do you want of me?" 
Again, it is when I go to you like a tired, weak and humble child and hide in you and ask you to wrap me in your arms, that I feel at peace with not knowing these answers, but yet knowing that you are there and this time together is so vitally essential.  You are in some ways slowly revealing yourself and plan to me, but it does feel like dying at times and I am uncertain.  Will I listen?  Will I follow?  Will I have the strength, the courage and the wisdom?  Will I have the fire?

So Lord, I will continue to hide in you.  You are my refugee, you are my peace that the world cannot give. What St. Augustine says is so radically true, "Our hearts are restless until they rest in you,"  because you work in ways that make me desire to spend time with you, that make me want to give myself more and more to you.  I have an insatiable appetite to learn who you are and who I am.  And, even though it causes pain, almost a purging and I get disappointed by my own sinfulness and that of others, I realize you work your will into everything because I am always led back home to you, my Father.  You are my hiding place O Lord (Psalm 32:7).


Citation:

St. Augustine of Hippo.  Confessions.  Retreived March 18, 2011 from:  http://www.piercedhearts.org/theology_heart/teaching_saints/hearts_restless_st_augustine.htm

Bodo, Murray.  St. Francis:  The Journey and The Dream.  St. Anthony Messenger Press:  October 30, 2006.