Thorns and Roses... my great deception

Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess...
Every little girl grows up hearing these words once in her life. This classic beginning of a fairy tale has inspired us to dream and feel beautiful, always wishing that one day we would be that beautiful princess and find our prince charming. But as we grow up that dream diminishes and we face the stark reality that life is not a fairy tale and that it does not always end in a happy ending. We awaken to a world of hate, brokeness and pain and the small longings of that little girls heart are buried beneath the worries of life.
I have never been so aware of the darkness of my heart than I have been since coming here. Being in a place where there is twenty-four hour worship and prayer has the strange effect of making you encounter God face to face whether you want to or not. But I didn't encounter Him the way I expected to. Instead this is a tale of a sleeping bride and a jealous,love sick lover who lets nothing stand between Him and His love.
Coming here has changed my perspective on a lot of things. But one of the most powerful things of all is that my eyes have been opened to the depravity of my heart. It's almost as if the mask that I have worn and used to deceive others as well as myself, has been torn and I am left vulnerable and naked. But in seeing my imperfection I have come to realise that in my weakness He is stronger and He desires me.
Now I want to be very real and explain that I have been extremely offended at God since coming here. It's painful to realise that I have so many issues and it hurts to have Him begin to bring them to light. For the longest time I couldn't even understand what I was going through. All I could do was sit in that prayer room and feel empty and far far away from God. It felt like in His nearness I was experiencing His absence. But He is so faithful. He never leaves us in the dark.
A couple of days ago my friend Aaron and I were praying together with my lovely European guys( more about them another time) and he turns to me and says " I see 'Sleeping Beautiful'over you" I totally laughed at him because I've been getting some sketchy prophecies here from guys who have tried to hit on me so this seemed really ridiculous. But those words wouldn't leave my mind. After praying I went back into the prayer room and all of a sudden I got this huge download from God. He reminded me that in German the title of the sleeping beautiful literally translated meant "thorn rose". I got a mental image of a huge castle surrounded by thorns which were covered by roses. The holy spirit began to reveal to me that those thorns were the things I had within my heart that were there to keep Him and others out. These were my dark issues of pride, bitterness, anger, selfishness etc etc. I had fooled myself into thinking that I did not have these issues and to appear that way to the rest of the world I had covered them up with roses. And then as I was looking at this castle I saw the prince. He was furiously hacking away at the thorns, a look of passion on his face as he worked to remove all that was in the way of him and his beloved. And as he chopped down the thorns he was getting scratched and his garments were being ripped to shreds. Yet not even the pain he was enduring would hinder him from making a path straight to the one he was lovesick over. And I realised that that prince was my Jesus. He was my passionate lover, lovesick for my heart while I lay asleep within the castle. He was the only one willing to deal with all my brokeness, to make a way past all my issues and to remove all that would hinder love. And this love that He was expressing was almost offensive because it was a jealous love. He wants all of me and he stand at nothing to get my whole heart. Theres pain in refinement but the end result is always beauty. This is what life is about. Theres nothing more this world can offer.