Are you done forgiving, or can you look past my pretending...

I've been reading the Psalms of late. They are popping up everywhere. I went to see Tenth Avenue North on Saturday night, and they called the songs they wrote the psalms of their hearts.

One of the set of lyrics in the song "Times" is as follows:

when we're close i fear you
still im afraid to tell you
all that i've done
are you done forgiving?
or can you look past my pretending?
Lord i'm so tired of defending
what i've become
what have i become?

There were several times during the concert that I felt like my heart was going to stop. I've been trying to figure out since then exactly what it is that I want to say about all this. Even now I can't really form the adequate words. Trying to describe to you the conversation I had with God Saturday night, in that crowded church, just below the volume of the guitars and drums...would be like trying to explain what it's like to see a sunset as beautiful as the one pictured above.
I had felt....far from God. Someone told me once that it isn't God that moves, it's us. So when did I move, where did I go? What had I become?
I act as if God is so small that he can't hold whatever it is that I withhold from him. I act as if he is blind, deaf, and even dumb sometimes. As if I hold whatever it is that I doing in secret just to the left and below the radar....he won't see it.
I do this through my own laziness, my own ignorance. I compare myself to those that I don't really know. I see their shell, what they choose to show the world....and I buy it as fact.
But is it? Who I perceive people to be may not be even close to who they are. Someone told me the other day a perception they had of me...and I honestly couldn't figure out how they would have come to that conclusion.

The lyrics of "Times" goes on to say:

i hear you say my love is over,
its underneath, its inside, its in between
the times you doubt me, when you can't feel
the times that you've questioned 'is this for real?'
the times you've broken, the times that you mend
the times you hate me and the times that you bend
well my love is over, its underneath
its inside, its in between,
these times you're healing
and when your heart breaks
the times that you feel like you've fallen from grace
the times you're hurting
the times that you heal
the times you go hungry and are tempted to steal
in times of confusion and chaos and pain
im there in your sorrow under the weight of your shame
im there through your heartache
im there in the storm
my love i will keep you by my power alone
i dont care where you've fallen, where you have been
i'll never forsake you
my love never ends, it never ends

The words were like a salve to my breaking heart. Even now I can't really articulate what it is exactly that touched me so deeply.
I hide, under this weight, under this shame (perceived or real doesn't really matter when there is shame), I hide behind obnoxious laughter and biting sarcasm. My arms hurt from holding myself up, from thinking that it's all my doing, this keeping together of myself. My love keeps me in his power alone...and doubting that, outright fleeing from that makes me feel such shame....shame that I also hide. I seem to think God's forgiveness is a finite resource, that it somehow will stop...suddenly...one day like my life.
But my God, he looks past my pretending. He looks past my doubts and fears. He sees into the deepest hidden parts of my heart and he shines a brilliant light in there.
He'll never forsake me, and His love never ends.

Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts,
See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting
Psalm 139:23-24

Praise be to the Lord
for he showed his wonderful love to me
Psalm 31:21

Test me, O Lord, and try me
examine my heart and my mind;
for your love is ever before me,
and I walk continually in your truth
Psalm 26:2-3