Hear My Cry

But when I was silent and still,

not even saying anything good,

my anguish increased.

-Psalm 39:2

How worn to the ground

must I become before

You hear my cry?

My bones are dust

and scatter in the wind.

Sleep eludes me;

I close my eyes

yet my heart races.

I am a fire that

cannot be calmed,

a thirst that

cannot be quenched.

I pace as a tiger

on the hunt.

I have nothing left.

I crumble in bits and pieces

at Your feet.

This is not enough.

Release me from

Your silence.

Fire Up

I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other!

-Revelation 3:15

Better to hurt than to feel numb. Better to feel your heart about to explode in your chest than to count the slow beats appear and fade and appear again.

            Better to breathe than to hold the stale air you inhale inside your rusting lungs. Better to love or hate than to experience neutral feeling. Because God wants you hot or cold, not somewhere in between. He wants you on fire, but if you’re ice cold, He’d prefer it over lukewarm. Because your heart is engaged one way or another, and if you forget to feel, you forget to live.

            You are breathing, but just barely. Living in a world of gray, veil of mist entwining your mind and unsure where you are headed, what you are feeling. If you could hurt, oh, how you’d let yourself bleed. But when you jab your skin, you are impenetrable. Nothing coming in, nothing going out. You read your Bible but can get nothing from the pages so it eventually stays on your dresser, because you are afraid to be dismayed at your lack of understanding.

            Something should be setting you on fire. Instead, you play around in the ashes. You scoop up a handful and watch your fingers stain.  There is nowhere to wash away their touch that dries your soul. How can you keep trying to feel and hear and see when your eyes and heart are draped in a dull simmer that unenthusiastically fans itself out?

            Better to be burned than to let yourself sit in this barren land, but you’ve cried out for rescue and were met with silence. Questions unanswered, hope unfulfilled. When you rise in the morning, a tiny wisp of your spirit calls for something special. Something extraordinary. But as quickly as it comes, it is covered by a damp blanket of doubt, heavy on your chest.

            Fight. Keep fighting. Keep praying, keep seeking, keep crying out into the dark. Pray for that flame. That it will ignite deep in the quiet caverns of your spirit, so one day the warm river of God will come rushing through you, sweeping you up in a flood of feeling and you will at last know how His love can capsize and toss you overboard into an ocean of unquenchable desperation.

            Better to crave His presence than to sit and watch Him pass with a blank, empty stare upon your face, etched in your heart.

Prayer:

Lord, I feel nothing. I am dull, I am lukewarm and I can’t seem to shake this feeling of nothingness. Please revive me, please show me that You haven’t left me alone, that my search for something, for YOU, is not a lost cause. Heal me with hope. Amen.

Send Me

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”

And I said, “Here I am. Send me!”

-Isaiah 6:8

My hands hover

halfway in the air,

swelling the blood in my limbs.

I have attempted to sort through

signals and sounds scratching

in my head, crowding my conscious.

I have said I want Your will,

want to do Your will,

but on whose terms?

I claim to taste Your calling,

but I am warm in my bed

without a reason to release

myself from the comfort

wrapped over me.

You say to deny ourselves,

and I admit I cannot deny

this pulsing inside me,

steady, picking up speed.

You move in me,

twisting open doors

I’ve bolted in place.

For they are not my chambers

but Yours.

When You speak I want to listen.

Where You point I will follow.

My heart is hooked to the

back of Your caravan.

Here am I.

Send me.

Prayer:

Father, You have called me to do Your work. I am eager, but need Your strength to move forward. Yet here I stand, ready and willing. Send me. Work through me. Amen.

Empty and Alive

The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.

-Luke 24:7

When things are empty, it’s usually not a good sign.

            An empty wallet signifies a lack of money, hardest when bills pile up and income wobbles.

            An empty glass means you’re out of your favorite beverage, or out of a positive outlook.

            An empty brain signals no one’s home upstairs. Usually not good in a school setting.

            An empty room- void of warmth and activity.

            An empty promise is a hard burden to bear.

            An empty heart cries out from the depth of its echo, longing for another soul to smile and let them know they are not alone.

           

            But an empty tomb… now that is a very good thing.

            A beautiful sign.

            A refreshment to our souls.

            Because an empty tomb means a risen King! Because the stones scraped together could not contain the power and the glory of the One whom was placed behind the boulder three days previous. When the tomb was opened and no one lay inside, a light pierced the hearts of those who turned and saw the Savior standing before them, with a beating heart and mankind’s hope fulfilled.

            A chamber cleansed of death. A new arrival that lifted us to life. A symbol of sadness turned to joy. A bare room, empty and alive. The Son of God, full of flesh. Vibrant. Victorious.

           

            An empty tomb took us to a place of astonishment, as the impossible turned possible before our eyes and the breath in our hearts cried out, “Hallelujah! He is risen!”

            He is risen, indeed!

Prayer:

You conquered death and the wrath of God for my sake. Not simply for the whole of the earth, but for ME, the tiny one who stumbles and shakes with fear. You have made me victorious through Your scars, so I may stand cleansed in front of the Father. Because of Your triumph, I am Yours. Thank You for this new and enchanting, eternal life! Amen.

His Breath

It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.” When He had said this, He breathed his last.

-Luke 23:44-46

Can you feel it?

            The ragged, raspy breath on your face?

Filled with pain, pure and purposeful. Exhaling the few and fragrant puffs of air inside His chest. He uses them to shift His weight between the nails, to cry out to the Father, wondering why He is left with silence. He pants and squeezes each bit of Himself into groans that stifle and shout through His body. His spirit is restless, longing to go home yet preparing for the road still to come. In moments, His soul will be released into His Father’s hands, and He will once again begin to fight.

            But the bittersweet breath of this dying deity releases another anthem. Through His struggles to stay upright between the wooden beams, blood-splashed lips rasp out a name.

            Your name.

            He repeats His response, one word speaking for a lifetime.

            Your face is before His bleary eyes. Your laugh bounces through his busted ears. As darkness folds into the sky, as the earth moans and shifts between its heavy weight, He is thinking of you, and the crooked, colorful pieces that compromise your beating heart.

            Your guilt that builds inside you, molding and murky. He wipes it away.

            Your shame in the secret spaces, where you don’t dare look Him in the face to see His disappointment- He paints a coat of white upon it.

            Your condemnation, covered in crimson.

            He remembers your smile as the sun bleeds black. He harbors your hurt and locks it between his ribcage. Your debt is ransomed in His demise.

            One last breath. One last gust of grace, draped upon the weeping wind and pulled across the sands, the waters, the years and miles and generations, gathering strength as His soul slips into eternity. His body sinks into the blade of a badgering soldier, but His heart, His hope, gathers new life as tenderness trickles down His face, drying upon the warm whisper of your name that gently lifts to your trembling, tentative, incredulous belief.

Prayer:

You were pierced and prodded and strung upon a cross for me and all the black filth of my life. You knew You would take the blows for me, and You willingly accepted Your fate. You broke for me. Your spirit shook the heavens and earth, and Your groans called out my name. You saved me from myself, from a lifetime apart from You. Let me remember. Let me call upon Your blood-stained name and receive everlasting joy and peace and grace with You. Amen.

Awakened

Do not neglect your gift, which was given you through a prophetic message when the body of elders laid their hands on you.

-1Timothy 4:14

            We are all meant to be.

            Someone.

            Something.

            A flash of light through thick, syrupy darkness.

            We have been fastened together by dreams and shapes and symphonies, formed in the secret spaces of the deep. Intentionally. With fervor.

We are silhouettes made of stardust, given faces and smiles sewn on our porcelain skin. In the moon-speckled night, our deepest longings were whispered delicately into our ear. While we slept, we soared.

And then, slowly, with sensation sweeping from our eyelids, we awoke. To colors drying and chipping from the sky. With our faces, our lineage, our stories, muffled against the exhaust of nameless fumes, toxic and telling us to move along. They invaded our invincibility, our homes that hooked us to our cotton clouds and pulled the string. We slipped and stumbled to the ground, no longer aware of the way we floated. Instead, the sharp realization of reality jabbed us in the jaw, and then we knew how much the fall would hurt once our brittle bones hit the earth.  Huddled around us, voices hissed, full of doubt and fear and cruelty. The voices grappled for the shine in our eyes, tender from the blistering light that led us for so long. They took the glow and hid them in shadows, where we could only hear the faintest whimpers as they wailed at our separation.

We were tried and tested, bruised but never fully bleeding. This new world sneered at the likes of us, the dreamers who had dared to believe we were made for more. So they kept us cowering, crossed up in lies that we don’t deserve delight. That we cannot claim a life of our own.

Yet.

A seed, small, insignificant to the outside eye, has been planted.

Many years ago.

Many miles from this world.

And it has grown, quietly, in the concrete corners of our heart.

There is something inside of us that cannot stay hidden, cannot stay sleeping. It is dangerous, it is explosive, it is the greatest instrument we can possess. And with it comes the living rush of wind that sets our sails to travel the sky. To once and for all search the sands and find the perfect space to insert our own shell, unique and exquisite in a sunrise’s surprise.

This is the time.

We are formed from the hands of mercy, of beauty, of light and love. These hands that formed the heavens, formed us. And within our private precincts, they placed a voice, a vision, a task entirely our own and utterly under our command.

We are to set fire to the fabric of our beings. We are to answer this call abundantly and unabashedly. And we are to savor each second the sunlight sweeps over our face.

Because in our breath, we taste our Creator. In our skills, we see our Mentor. And in our depth and width and luster of this fading world’s wonder, we see Him who lifted us from the cradle of conformity and set us high upon the hill of hope, His light bathing us in such a glory all who look upon us burst forth in choruses of admiration.

            How they shine, their reactions echo. How they radiate with the touch of His approval.

            All other voices are silenced.

Prayer:

Lord, I am meant to be more than I am making of myself. I have talents, I have gifts, I have abilities and determination that You have put inside me. I have roles that only I can fill, and to let them sit and fade each day is wasting what You have given me. Allow me to recognize You want to use me, want me to bring You glory in every tiny and tremendous way I can. Let Your light shine, let Your hand guide me. Thank You for allowing me to be more, for Your intricate and beautiful purposes. Amen.

Joyful Touch

I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God.

-Isaiah 61:10

            All good things are Your touch.

            Pink-veined posies, speckled sunshine through climbing trees, a well-timed card of encouragement from a dear and doting friend.

            All the good things, the beautiful moments, they are trailed by Your fingertips. You give good things. You want to. I need to go about my day delighting in You. In the sweep of the sky, in the chuckle in my chest, in the sheer magic that is Your presence. Too many times have I gone peeking around the rosebush, hoping to find a bouquet fall at my feet and miss the wildflowers blooming before me. Each dream in my heart has been drawn by Your hand, each hope harbored in Your sea.

            You take joy in seeing me joyful, and when a smile steals across my face, it blazes straight to Your Spirit in exuberance.

            To take satisfaction solely in You is the greatest gift You could give me, my longing finally fulfilled. To discover and accept this gift, and store it securely inside me, could give me guidance and enchantment beyond all I’ve ever collected in wonder behind my eager breath.

Prayer:

Lord, thank You that You delight to make me smile, and that You desire for me to see Your smile in all that I say, all the beautiful, peaceful, tiny moments of each day. Please help me to see You everywhere I turn, and help me show the joy I receive with others. Amen.

The Lord's Prayer

This, then, is how you should pray…

-Matthew 6:9

My holy, precious Father,

Your name is majestic, sacred, wrapped in love. May it always be revered. Bring Your kingdom to this earth, to my life, and let me live according to Your good and perfect will. What You want me to say, let my lips be light and flow forth encouragement. Where You want me to go, let my steps be quick and firm and follow your footsteps fearlessly. Let Your light shine from within me.

            You are faithful, providing for my every need. You gather seeds from my barren fields and turn them to lush and filling food for my soul. I turn to You in trust that You will see to me today.

            My sins are many. Some I’m too ashamed to share with another living soul. But You know my deepest regrets and each offense I’ve committed against You, and in Your infinite grace, You wipe them from my slate and set me free. I am forever grateful. May I show the same forgiveness to those who wrong me, for those hurting souls who lash out as a desperate cry.

            I am weak. My spirit is willing but my flesh consumes me. Temptations surround me, some blatant, some so subtle I do not realize the pool of poison I am wading into until I am neck high with no way out. Hold Your saving hand out to me, that I may grasp it and escape my snares.

            To Your power and righteousness I pledge my heart, that I may dwell in Your everlasting kingdom. You, my King, and only You, deserve honor and praise, and to Your great dominion I cry out my allegiance. You are the Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last, the One who rules forever and ever.

            Come, Lord, and reign in me. Let Your mercy stretch wide through my heart.

Amen.

Provision

God sends His love and His faithfulness.

-Psalm 57:3

It’s been one year since I left my job. One year since I packed up my bobble heads, cleaned out my desk and walked out of a building that was my home away from home for three and a half years. I left a job that looks great on paper, security that I would always have more than enough (sometimes even too much) work to keep me busy and employed, and approval of my choice of profession in the eyes of my peers. I walked out of certainty, and into the unknown. No job lined up, no fixed income, no knowledge of where I was heading. All I knew was that it was time for me to leave, that God was calling me to get up and follow Him.

So I did. Through various part time jobs, continuous hours at a coffee shop, and whatever other little lines of payment that fell in front of me, I made it through the spring, then summer, and then the colder months. Sometimes I’d have multiple days off during the week, hanging on twentyish hours of work. Other times, it was seven days a week for months, sometimes working from early in the morning until late at night. But through all of the hours, or lack thereof, God was ever present and mindful of me. Gloriously enough, as I battled the horrific monster that was my checkbook, God provided just enough for me, exactly when I needed it, almost to the dollar. Whenever bill time arrived, God gave me the funds to pay. And so I got by month to month.

What I did isn’t exactly what some might call a “wise decision,” especially in these times of economic somersaulting. To walk away from what I had and make a u-turn to walk down the path of faith is unusual, and when I first started telling people I left my job, they looked at me with sympathy pooling in their eyes. They didn’t understand that it was actually my choice to leave, to follow a calling I felt was much bigger, by a boss who ruled not only my life, but the universe as well. There have been times where I have been questioned, where I’ve been made to feel like serving coffee wasn’t good enough, and asked when I would be getting a real job. My response to these people? I do have a real job. Because to me, going out and serving God in whatever way I can, however He calls me to live as His light, is the most real and awakening life I’ve been privileged to have.

Believe me, it hasn’t been an easy trek. There are times where I wonder if I’m doing the right thing, if I’m living out my life in a way that glorifies Him. I know He has something in store for me, and I have a tendency to strain my eyes down the road. But I can honestly say that I have never relied on Him more and taken satisfaction in the little moments He graces me with, because without His provision, and the affirmation that I am walking in His footsteps, I couldn’t get through the days that turn to weeks, which mold into months.

One of the most amazing things that I’ve been learning, and I’ll write it in stone because this is a definite learning process, is that He is faithful. He cares, and He comforts when some days it’s doubt, and other days it’s destiny, that battles within me.

Do I know where I’m going? Absolutely not. Do I know where I’ve come from? Most certainly. And the distance between these two places of my life is not measured by my accomplishments, but rather what God is able to accomplish through me. Because He’s in the driver’s seat; I’m just along for the ride.

 

Prayer:

Father God, I thank You for where You have brought me. I thank You for your provision, and the reliance upon You and only You when I cannot see where I am going and how my needs are going to be met. You are always faithful, and I know that You will continue to walk with me as I make my way through this adventure called life. Amen.