Zipperhead - [Sharon]

I don’t know about you guys, but sometimes I feel like my head is unzipping. I mean, I know it sounds vague, and theatrical, but it’s the only phrase that keeps popping into my mind every time I’m driving in my car thinking, or sitting in my house thinking, or trying to have conversations with people. My head feels like it’s unzipping.

How do I even put into words what I mean? Maybe I can at least give you some symptoms of the affliction. Let’s see, I guess the most common is the desire to bolt. I get this intense urge to pack all my belongings, and just move away. To somewhere completely new, so I can assume whatever identity I choose, and start over. Has anyone seen The Good Girl, with Jennifer Aniston? There’s this scene at the end of the movie, where she’s narrating her choices: If she drives her car to the right, she goes back to her painfully mundane life. And even though it’s the morally correct thing to do, it offers her no real hope, or promise, or joy. If she turns left, Ahhhhh....open road, stretching out before her. The image, when I watched it, just made me feel a rush of cool air in my soul...I felt like I could suddenly breathe, just looking at that highway, the road forming that beautiful sharp point, penetrating the horizon. That’s the way I find myself feeling at times these days. It’s overwhelming. The Radiohead lyric, “Frantic. Like a cat - tied to a stake.” resonates on the deepest level in my head.

Today Erik told me the story of a monk being chased by a tiger. He sees a cliff, and a rope hanging over the side. So he climbs down it, and looks below to see jagged rocks at the bottom underneath him. So he hangs there: tiger stalking above, rocks looming below. Suddenly, he notices the most beautiful, luscious strawberry he’s ever seen growing out of the cliff face in front of him. So he eats it. And that’s the end of the story. I don’t need to explain the message to you all. You get it. So I am trying to eat that f-in’ strawberry. I see it. In fact, I see more than one. They’re all over the cliff face around me. But for some reason, the urge to get off that rope is so strong that I seriously consider just letting go, and seeing what it feels like to land on those rocks. After all, at times it seems the temptation to quit just hanging around is almost too much to handle.

So what am I trying to say in all this? Absolutely nothing, other than I KNOW God is working. I KNOW I am right where He wants me to be. In fact, that is part of why my head feels like it’s unzipping. Because I feel closer to Him than I ever have in my whole journey with Him, yet I feel equally as close to screwing everything up in an attempt to get off the friggin’ rope.

Will some of you inevitably think I’m losing it? Yes. Will some of you know EXACTLY what I’m talking about? Hopefully. But whatever your thoughts, I’m glad I know that Abba sees it as all part of the process. I’m indescribably secure in knowing that He’s with me no matter where I go in my unzipped skull. Whether I climb back up to the tiger, drop my carcass onto the rocks, or just dangle for as long as it takes, He is there. He WILL be with me. And He’ll be with you, too.

I guess that’s the strawberry I’m tasting today.