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The King is never wasteful with His words;
He speaks exactly. The King is judicious in His timing; He speaks exactly. The King is deliberate in His love; He speaks exactly. To the core of my being He speaks exactly; He speaks the right words in the right moment with the right motive; He speaks His will into being, and it never returns void. How awesome is the Master of Language, to speak with utter clarity to His beloved in all her thousands of tongues, to speak exactly in love. Oh praise be to the King who speaks exactly, and may my soul be open to His words. I take out my heart and hold it, near objectively, I can feel it, but it can’t quite feel me.
For a time it felt too much of everything, too strongly, too fearfully, so now I hold it out at a distance and observe it suspended in a cool, dormant state. From time to time it whirs and revs like an engine about to act and then it clicks off and returns to its waiting, avoiding that feeling of feeling too much. Surely it beats still, and knows of joys and aches and sorrows, but encased as it is in fear, it does not beat so brightly as it was built to, nor as darkly, nor as true. So there it is, my heart chilled and closed in, and I know in my head it is my work, my choice, to crack the casing so it may breathe in open, vulnerable air. Yes here is my heart in my hands, and it is my work and my decision to surrender it to hands mightier than my own, to hands profoundly more gentle and loving. By grace through faith, those are the means and terms of surrender, from a starting point of deeply known and loved, and yet it is work to release it from my grasp. For the heart open is open to pain, for the Spirit grieves, the Son weeps, and Yahweh aches for closed hearts to be open, to know and dwell in their place in the kingdom. So in time I will release my death-grip on this heart of mine and surrender, accept the deep grace that surrounds me, trust in breathing, bleeding life — in time, yes, in time. You shudder and cough, exhausted,
Worn down by life without rest. Hold. Do not crumple into a grumble; You have an inheritance of light, of wholeness. Stand in humility, daughter, son, In confidence knowing how well you are held, Never once abandoned by grace, Nor forgotten by the creator-king. Move in communion and sincerity with family, Reach and be seen, go together into the days, Into the long nights, into the fresh mornings. Go with arms linked, in step with the spirit. Things are breaking down,
Decomposing and exposing their worth, The value of their component parts. This chemical untethering and weathering Is pungent, gritty, quiet, unhurried; A process natural, rational, and so foreign To the breakneck speed of modernity, With its showiness and curt efficiency; This slow, steady, deliberate work humbles, Discouraging pat responses and deflections About the true substance of things and instead Creates space and time for stillness, for sifting. It is uncomfortable to reveal and relinquish The bits and pieces that have no further use, But to recognize essential things and invest Them in new soil is grace alive in the dirt. Testimony
It is not a hidden thing It is the name I carry It is my bare face open to you Testimony is deep light Working out from within and dancing Rejoicing and weaving into every fiber of my being I have been redeemed And heaviness still comes and grief And in the midst of everything Every joy and prayer and breath and meal I am known and I am not alone I am held and dwelt with Oh ever-present grace Grief is patient and unwieldy,
So much of a thing and lingering there And here in a breath, in a moment, in a whiff That incites memory and oh the weight. Grief is obtrusive and deafening, A ringing in the ears to signal all is not well, As if that were not already felt to the bone, It is brutal and honest and personal. Grief is bitter and necessary, Like un-sugarcoated medicine or a splint, A reminder of need and lack and pain And, in dear unforeseen time, of mending. May we meet and be met with grace in our grief. May we meet and be met by grace. Smothered by our blanket statements so grand and unnuanced we are blinded, but particulars from this distance dodge about like the dust hanging in the air and are equally as hard to catch and know up close. Variables, circumstance, history, future - seeking to form an ethos without an objective truth is to spin and spin and spin and pin the tail on something arbitrary, or at least incomplete. A party game without a winner, with spectators chuckling nervously at the failed attempts, perhaps uncertain they will be able to stumble any closer to the objective, but boasting that their aim is more true. Dizzy. Buzzing. Busy. Shouting hoarsely these coarse things as if they were not made of the same hate the shouter claims to decry. Why is it like this? Or why is this how it appears in this all-seeing, biased biased screen of scrolling, trolling news. It is abuse - to peace of mind and to good thought and to honest, personable conversation. Is this how to process now: In screams and slapdash justice without a beat to listen or extend grace? Without a care for the soul behind the face? What are we? What are we here in this place?
Days, moments, years take on a mixture of hues, but this through-line keeps its color. This through-line anchors me in peace, when I will look to it, recognize it, believe it. So often I run in scattered ways, scrambling to catch a breeze, not listening to the constant melody, the rhythm that can truly hold me, the rhythm that knows me. Selves take form in situations; I flutter and dash, but in some stillness, in some loving action, in some choice to listen, there is stability, growth, genuine childlike faith.
- - - You don’t feel solid, whole - you think because there is room for growth you do not have all you need now. You have been sheltered, but you don’t fully trust Me. You don’t know how to balance faith with how overwhelming it all feels. But you do know Me. You do know My heart for people, My heart for you. You have sat in My presence and met My eyes and felt My sincere love, grief, patience, joy, humility. It is much. I Am complete. You don’t have to do everything. I see you completely. I see you completely. I see you completely. I want you to trust Me out of loving obedience. I want to spend time with you. I don’t want to be a passive checklist item in your day - a phone a friend, I want to live life with you. I want to be your center, the first person you run to with everything. I Am your encourager, comforter, counselor, friend, Lord. I want you to recognize and walk in My stability. My humble peace is for you, for My kingdom. we run full out and leap into this swirl of a thing,
knowing it is limited in the physical realm, because the worth is in the intangibles of its nature: heart, narrative, and relationship. so we invest ourselves in the process, growing in experience and skill, together, because we have felt the worth of the work and we in some grand sense are the consequences of the labor of those before. then the swirl ceases and we must release its magic to resonate in memories while its form we deconstruct and cleanse to allow space for new ventures and we are the better for having dwelled and let go. made up of all kinds of things
that are magic and earth, and, like alchemy, made up of the endeavor to see the mundane go gold and brilliant. quaint. both nostalgic and optimistic. hopeful in a certain sense. certain that in the substance of things there is magic. |
AuthorI write to process. I write to explore. I write with the hope of sharing truth greater than my own. Archives
January 2017
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