The Promise of a New Day

A soft breeze dances through my open window. The sky, light ember, with the promise of a new day.

Here, I wrap this quiet around me, the same quiet I used to run from, was once so afraid of.

I tuck myself into its safety, serenity, brilliant promise that even in the quiet empty….He is here.

I hold this day in my heart, asking, what might it entail? Laughing with my kids, arms out surrender, making beauty amidst this war?

Can I grab, like a desperate beggar, moments of kindness, fleeting promises of joy? Or will I cave to the downward spiral, of news and hysterics?

Will I look into the masked faces of anonymous strangers and continue to see fear?

Nothing good ever comes from fear.

My Newfound chases the morning birds, pecking at the moist, morning grass, for something to eat.

And we are all scavangers, really. Needing some kind of nourishment from a day that is scorching, promises unbearrable heat and is withering the already weakened.

The early bird gets the worm?

Another bird perches itself on the pole of our tomato plant. Another pecks on our deck for the crumbs my toddlers left from dinner last night.

The whole earth is still, with a waiting I have never seen. All asking. All pleeding. Who will be our savior?

I look around my five acres. The evergreens in a line, over every once of our property.

They pierce the summer sky, rising up, pointing to light, coming through the clouds.

And I don’t know why we long, command and demand, make and do, work and claw our way to become something important.

Does the earth ask of the dirt it’s worth? Do the plants, look to the weeds and say, “What is my value?” 

Don’t they all cry out His name? And doesn’t He say, “The rocks will cry out”, if we muffle or silence His goodness?

Yet, here we are. Muzzled. Silenced. Running from beauty. Demanding He shrink Himself so that we might feel important.

Haven’t we made the world our idol and God a puppet, so he can caters to our wild torment and pety needs?

He is no small god.

I see Him brighter through the ruffled clouds, as the morning wakes and He whispers to the weak…those things not afraid to be small….

Yes, He whispers to me.

And I missed Him, oh how I used to miss Him in my wanderings. In my striving, and pushing life so jammed from morning to evening.

And perhaps this life of “still” isn’t a curse after all, but a gift He has graced to all of humanity? A mercy offering, undeserved…

After unleashing our wicked hearts to such greediness for centuries.

What will we do with the still?

What will we do when the earth comes to meet us in the silence of our own stories? Will we run and keep running, flee and keep grasping for something to fill the void?

Or will we pause, be still. Sit in the shallow waters of our own consciousness, asking God to speak?

Will we come to reconcile who we are, what we have become and grow small in repentence, after seeing the ugliness we’ve created?

Who are we to hold, anything but the air in our hands? Who are we to want, when we have already been given such abundance?

Why do we wrestle with Love? Fear The One who made sparrows dance outside our windows, boldly and unapologentic?

Don’t they know what they are cared for and have everything they need? Yet, we fear loss? And depletion? And weakness?

As if somehow God has not been good to all of human nature?

Wasn’t it us who closed the window to His light? Us who ran from the earth longing to welcome us with a new beginning, each and every morning?

Isn’t it us who constantly keep striving for something more? Placing walls around God, and us, and the land….

Our homes, self-made castles of selfishness….

Instead of seeing the needs around us, knowing we were made for something more…

To love, and serve, and give.

We have a poem inside us, all of us do. And it longs, even still, to write a message on the hearts of all humanity.

But, words don’t flow in fear and hate.

They freeze at pain, wait in the corners of our very own hearts, if we don’t abandon ourselves to the truth that God is bigger still…

And we don’t need to be anything, but to rest, a vessel in His hands.

Empty. Willing. Abandoned to His love.

Still, empty vessels? Oh, the thought. How it used to be terrifying.

How I once hated the echoes of my own soul and the reflection of my own life, never feeling good enough. Wanting and asking Him, always asking for more…

Yet, He gave. Though I am so deserving. He kept on giving.

Why was it so late for me to see, I never needed anything but Him in the first place?

He is enough. He is more than enough, always.

Every creature cries out in joy at the purpose of giving praises up to the God of all this beauty.

Yet, we hide, like masked creatures, in the hollows of our home. Hide from the light in eyes, now dim from the world as we know it.

And we wait. Wait for the God of our redemption. In the corners of it all. In the confined of the consequences of our own sins.

Yet, can we still rest? Rest, as the earth graciously pours a cool breeze through the sun darted sky and the open window of minds surrender to self and cry out for Him?

Have we waited too long? Victims to our own thoughts, vying for selfish worth?

Yet, here I rest. Rest in the promises of a still earth, a human soul, a willing mind, accepting all that comes this day…

Whether it be bold faith or more reports of the onslaught of the helpless innocent.

And I hold to His promise of hope. Like a captive of Love, a shipwrecked sojourner of someone who longs for me in a far, distant land.

And He is coming. Rescuing us all from ourselves, with the hope of something greater, a land broader and less unforgiving.

And we must wait, in the stillness, for His peace that surpasses all understanding. Ceasing from striving. Giving all praise to Him, as the light steaks across the morning…

And God calls to me with His promise…

“I will never leave or forsake you.”

He is enough. He is more than enough. So, I wait in the quiet of my own content heart. Thankful for a new day and a love that covers this earth….

Finding joy and true redemption in a morning, a world finally waking, slowly, to the Son.