Patience

Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him.
-2 Peter 3:15


I’m sitting in the terminal at the airport, daylight slowly waning. My family and I are on our way to Florida to watch my brother and sister play ball. We are on a three hour delay.

Sure, there was groaning and frustration and a chorus of “Why didn’t we check the flight status before we left?”, but it has settled down and there is a quiet calm about the area. Restaurants and gift shops are slowly beginning to pack up for the day, and people are scattered around the pink plastic cushions overlooking the runway. Occasionally, other passengers walk by on their way to their gate, which will board on time. I watch all of this with interested eyes. Yes, we are delayed, but we are patient. We have to be. There’s nothing we can do about the situation, and eventually, when the time is right, our plane will arrive and we’ll be on our merry way.

We are human. We have short attention spans and even shorter tempers. God is God. He sees forever, knows our actions caused by our tempers, and loves us nonetheless. He is patient, watching us flail and flop on our own. When we’ve finally exhausted all of our options for personal satisfaction, His arms are waiting for us to run into them. And when our weary limbs are rested in His mighty embrace, He kisses our face, looks straight in our eyes, and, with a sweet smile, says, “You were worth the wait.”


Prayer:
God, I thank You that You are so patient with me. That You watch me stumble over and over, yet encourage me to get up and try again. And when I finally make it to You, You greet me with a warm, welcoming embrace. Thank You. Amen.

Morning Star

And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.
-1 Peter 1:19


I have lain, face down, in a gutter filling with rainwater. Heavy droplets have seeped into my skin, spreading poisoned thoughts through me. A cold, suffocating blanket of hopelessness burrows around my body. I raise my head to keep above the rising ruins of my life. I can be strong. I can hang on to this tiny, echoing voice in my head that tells me, with each painful gasp of air, that this is not all there is.

But the water, pouring in straight from the Arctic, it seems, steadily rises, mocking me. “Look at you,” it sneers, “buried in regret and covered in catastrophe. Who do you think you are? Who do you think you will become? Trash you always have been and trash you will be.”

I slide deeper into this pool of panic, a pit of quicksand that pulls me down, heavy and with purpose. I am drained; there is no more fight within me.

Then a star appears. Set in the inky sky, lightly it sparkles in its place. It looks fragile, shimmering so sweetly above me. A crystal compass, it guides me to another star, then another, until a glowing world winks at me beyond my head, and I am helpless to do anything else but raise my eyes to the heavens and watch them turn fireworks in the night. I am beginning to dry. The rain is receding and water slowly drains from my ditch.

Still there is one more star I have just noticed. Bigger than the others, blindingly bright. It covers the entire sky with its white-hot blaze, streaking through the atmosphere and penetrating my skin. A searing pain shoots through me, but it isn’t hurtful. Almost like a refiner’s fire, chipping away at the broken pieces. The weight that held me down for so long snaps from my heart. A lightness I’ve never felt falls in its place, like I’m living on air. The sky still spills light, a vibrant, beautiful chandelier. I breathe it into my veins.

Now the gutter is barren. No mire, no sludge, no suffocating water seeping into my bones. I am clean, washed in this newly rinsed righteousness. With my heart pounding within and the cosmos in my eyes, I rise. I stand on two feet, held up by hope.

Dawn arrives in a pretty pastel greeting. I blink, unable to believe I lasted through the night. As the stars return to their beds hidden in the blanket of day, I watch the last one continue to linger and realize I was guided by the gleaming Morning Star.


Prayer:
Father, thank You for lifting me out of the pit, for changing my filth and depleting self-confidence into beauty and worth. Thank You for guiding me, my beautiful Morning Star. Amen.

Fair and Bright

Who is this that appears like the dawn, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, majestic as the stars in procession?
-Song of Songs 6:10


For two hours you’ve been walking through room after room in the home of some friend of a friend you’ve met twice in passing. Nothing interests you, the conversations float around your head like clusters of butterflies whose wings are too silent to truly fly. Though you arrived as a security blanket for your friend, she is nowhere to be found. Her focus found the right ears and attention draws to her in the drawing room. So you slip out, circle the kitchen, the basement, the dining room and even the laundry room, hoping for some semblance of solitude from the madness of monotony. In a last effort, you find yourself back to the front room, where windows touch ceiling and floor, your favorite song floats through the stereo and, for a moment, you think you could sail to Jupiter from the propelling melody and stars beckoning outside the panes.

You’re there, half listening to the people chattering around you. It’s nothing new, same old gossip and groaning.

But then you hear a voice. A new voice. Following the sound, you make your way to the other side of the room. The voice belongs to a man. There is something about him that intrigues you. Maybe it’s the way he carries himself, with a quiet confidence. Or the fact, you realize with sudden self-awareness, that he is surrounded by a sea of people. They swarm, as if they cannot get deep enough into his space. You begin to back away, thinking it was silly to follow a sound that could disappear like the wind on a still summer day.

He turns, and your eyes lock. It’s nothing you’ve experienced before; electric, but warm, like lava coursing through your veins. Those eyes- such a clear intensity, bursting behind honest irises. You feel like an awestruck school girl again, too aware of his presence and too afraid to tear yourself away and break the inexplicable link held by an invisible tapestry.

And then he smiles. Slow, slightly crooked, stunningly beautiful. His grin is guided to you. With a wide wave of his lips, you plant your heart in his eyes and admit to yourself that this night, this man, just may have altered the course of your life.


Prayer:
Thank You for always having Your eyes on me, no matter how many others circle around You for Your presence. You seek me out, You see that I am special.

Revive Me

Will You not revive us again, that Your people may rejoice in You?
-Psalm 85:6


My skin is shaking, heart is hammering. There’s this pulsing, rushing ruby in my veins. Sweeping through me, underneath me, to the chambers of my heart. It’s been locked, held securely by a key of hidden hurt. Now the currents push forward and the cracks cannot keep up.

Walls come crumbling, humbling my dry, weary soul. Shock soars through me, a realization of the booming echoes reverberating inside. I’m broken, my heart is stripped to shreds. Marrow seeping, eyes are bleeding out the salty tears I’ve held at bay.

There’s a hole in my heart, tightening the remains to shrivel together and steal the breath from my collapsing lungs. My soul hears nothing but slapping waves of regret rattling my shore of surrender.

Wheel me through the doors of flashing red, place me urgently on the table wrapped in panic. Tear my gown from my neck, take away this suffocation. Pick a scalpel sharp and blazing. Work precisely. Transfuse my colorless blood with scarlet salvation. Salve my wounds. Bind my scars. Resuscitate my faltering faith.

I lay, bare and busted. Swiftly shape my heart, drain the disbelief, shoot a river of redemption flowing through my arteries. Create an unshakable shield for this susceptible soul.

Revive me.


Prayer:
Father God, bring me to life. Bring me to life in You.