so honestly... half the time I'm just afraid. Afraid to say what's really on my mind because surely,
surely that would always do more harm than good. Frankness should be saved for emergencies. Times when the roof is caving in and I will regret forever holding back that shout while a beam has cut through someone else's spine. Amazing how it always comes back to
me isn't it?
my regrets,
my needs... So let me just stop
right now
and talk about You.
Today You let me rise up again, rested, breathing, alive and whole. Shuffle into the kitchen, and You feed me cereal. Shuffled (so haphazardly, again!) into Your word, and you fed me Christ. It's almost ridiculous when I think about it. Your blood-bought eternal child bumbling along, fondling the things of this world, and so often spurning the colossal diamond, the great throbbing gift of Your love. Are we
mad? Are we dithering,
demented insane that we reach a pinky finger toward the lifeboat which would rather heave us into itself, mind body and soul?
And yet, it was love I called out for, cross and unsure as I was. I didn't like all this aloneness, this sitting cold in front of Your consuming fire. And so you send Your word... promises, truths, commands, and letters of love. And I thought, "Oh... not for me. Not joy. Not today." It couldn't really have been
meant to be taken so... to take You at your word. So, I cried again, "Lord I don't
feel it! I'm tired of this dead carcass on the inside!" And You sent your love again... warm and living in Your people. And around me they came, they smiled and laughed, they encouraged and questioned and cared. And my response? Complaint. Simpering. Self-absorbed babble mostly drowning out the living love around me. And so went the day, me wretchedly poor and not knowing it, You, in infinite patience forgiving, quickening, not imputing, carving again that which should have Your stamp already deeply engraved.
And here I am, late again, whiling away the time. Reluctant, like a small child, to go to bed... two decades later, and clenching the same stubbornness. Deep down... terrified because I know what this ending brings. I must look back and see every work done in my own strength, every void of wasted time both piled up - filthy rags, stinking in Your nostrils. But listen heart, should you really loath these bitter herbs? Is not the sweetness following? When all your dingy scaffolding has come down and your little mud castle melts to its true form, what is given to you when your knees finally hit the floor?
Christ.
He is your Love. He is the answer to all your insecurities, your debilitating sluggishness, your maniacal self-obsession. Do you have sins? Take them to Christ. Is your existence lifeless and worthless? Come to Him in aching imperfection and watch as the voids are filled.
To delay for one second is a danger, to seek self-cure is psychotic delusion. To fly upward, inward evils and all?
that is the one sanity and hope. Come, my soul, drop your wretched resistance, and collapse into what you have been seeking and yet rejecting all along. Rest. Peace. Sanity. Assurance. Kindness and Forgiveness. Graciousness and Compassion. Life. A Second Chance. Faith. Hope. Love.
