Make Your Way to Moving Waters

Dawn wakes me with a gentle nudge. Calling, beckoning, leaning in close, of promises yet to come.

It invites like a patient courter. Draws, like a love-sick warrior.

I answer the call and rise to my feet.

Legs trembling. Eyes piercing through the morning light by choice, not by fight.

His mercies, I’m told are new every morning. But what about when days blur into night and only the Son rising, gives any hint of what’s coming.

Is He faithful when we point arrows, taint, tarnish, attack the one thing beaming, giving us refuge from the coldness all around us?

I have been told to hope. I wait with memories. My lazy mind filters through the lies and rests so plain on peace this morning.

Because although my weary body forgets, my mind remembers. My thoughts and stories of me, who the one lost soldier finds in the deep of night, rises to the surface…

And that is enough.

That’s all any of us need, one redemption story, shining the way in the shadows of evening.

I remember, not that long ago, my hero rode a valiant horse, perfect white, coming forth, with Victory in His hands.

And how all striving, trying, doing, being, left me weak and weary, helpless and useless….

Only One touch of His cloak gave me strength to go on.

A beggar, really. Aren’t we all?

Standing on the sands of The Man in Sandles. Not warrior boots, but wrapped in white, grace covering His face.

He turns and looks forth amongst the crowd, and there in the business and the loud, He sees the most broken….

He sees me.

And not only do physical eyes meet. But a light and life is transfered, of One Heart, One Dream, One Power, One Vision.

Love becomes known, seen.

I become loved, fully.

I rise from the ashes in a morning just like this. Dawn awakening in the depths of my being.

And I am known. In the quiet of the morn, in the silence of my soul, in the weariness of my every aching bone….

He bends down, and reaches for my hand, pulls me upward, and tells me, He is “I Am”.

And that is enough. 

All the peril and tradgedy, lies and deception bow at His perfect feet. And what I once used to protect myself, falls to the ground like a surrendered soldier….

And I am left whole. Complete. Perfect in His sight.

Redeemed by His eyes.

I was lost. But now I am found in His unquenchable love in His eyes.

And although I wake with weary legs this morning. Look around at a still earth, waiting for His presence to rise among the darkness….

I can, I will, and I choose to, once again, rise full of His strength.

Welcoming Waters

The waves crashed against the shore yesterday. I was tired of dry land, so I scooped up my four girls and made my way to where water laps the land.

I was wrestless in that place at first. No trees or birds, bunnies or land, worked by the hands of my husband.

Instead, just open sky. Open sky that calls forth to the depths of my being. Asks me in my vulnerable state to meet me, just where I am.

And how small we can feel when the sky is large, when the world seems big, when the needs somehow claw and demand their attention.

But there, with the sounds of seagulls drifting down, scooping up their meal, with the mountains, still white, unapologentically resurrected in the bright of the hot, afternoon sun…

I was found. By Him. Once again.

I remember when I once ran from the nature, into the city to hide what was in me. I found strength in numbers, anonymous beings, scavanging for something to make and keep them invisible.

But the loneliness can only ache for so long. The silent majority will rise like a volcano and we will all eventually see them…

Even when it’s easier not to see. To cringe at pain spewing from burning buildings.

We can ignore the wide open. Live lifeless, dead, quiet in the corners of our head.

But eventually, if we ever want a chance…We will have to find our voice.

Rules, lies, deception, and rigidness, thrive in the chaos of control and demands. But in the layers of pain or materialism, selfishness or misery…

Every dog has their day.

And the way we treat people, will come calling, come raining and taunting. And eventually we will be our own worst enemy.

We will be the hate we pointed fingers at….If we don’t let go and make the decision to love. Forgive. Live free.

The waters call my name as the sunlight flutters across the deepest waters, like a ballerina, dancing her final tune in front of an audience of One.

I breathe in the open sky, and lean in for a closer grasp of something I’ve been missing.

Because strangers always live in cages. This land wasn’t created with square walls, metal cars, built contraptions, keeping us away from one another.

“It’s not good for man to be alone”, He whispers. But, oh how more than one, can take, demand, destroy us with the untouchable tree.

I wrestle with this idea that man was not meant to be alone. But alone is the only place I have ever been able to find myself, see myself….be.

I get lost in the noise. My mind tangles in the webs of other people’s pain and ideas…

And I need the open skies, even if I run from them.

This push and pull of creation. Wrestling always with an omnipotent God, watching it all, but also directing.

He is not void of our pain.

He sees as my four girls play on the edge of the water; picking up seaweed, giggling as they kick their feet in fresh water, finding seashells, then defining their beauty without words…

Just one look on their face tells the story of the beauty they see.

What story does my face tell?

Oh, such joy they teach me. Joy is rising endlessly to the calling tide, drifting into peace, and welcoming the stranger as if it were their brother.

One accord. Life abundant. Fearless and valiant in faith.

“The angels of children actually see the face of God”. The Bible tells us. And I can see Him clearer in those who don’t run from pain, don’t hide in cities, don’t fear waking and standing to their feet.

They embrace the big, the wide open, the impossible, the imperfect…

And so shouldn’t I too? Shouldn’t we all?

He twinkles in their eyes as the clouds He calls by one word to dangle from the skies, drifts to someplace, padding the pain within me….

And I find rest again. In the waiting. In the aching. In the middle lands of earth and heaven…

Where all of Creation cries out for Him….

And the bold and the brave look to heaven to find their joy….

Making their way further, into deeper waters.