God, how you've lifted me. How you've graced me with your presence & I am in awe of you once more. & it's so funny to me the way I have been in search for this joy & peace lately. I know it's in my bones & in my being & I know you say this is what you're made of, love. Father, I know this the same way you know that just because something is within us doesn't always mean it's crawling on my skin for me to feel. Timing is everything, & although it doesn't always feel magical & wonderstruck, it's yours, too, & you are still in control & you still reign with all authority. Timing can crush, sure, but the sorrow time can behold doesn't disintegrate the joy packaged in each day, waiting to be revealed, or maybe for us to open our eyes. Open eyes, open ears, open hearts. We are ready, Lord. We want to feel you move.
This is about packages. Prepackaged crap that lands on our doorstep in paper bags. The match isn't always pressed against the crinkled brown, sending flare signals visible to the eye & potent to the nose, alerting you that the present you've got isn't golden. Sometimes, it's just there. A paper bag, end folded, resting on our doorstep.
It happened to me. Not the actual someone pooping on my doorstep & lighting it on fire, part, but the part where I had something that appeared to be a treasure on the outside turn my world upside down. A something that seemed so harmless, a something that sounded no alarms. It landed in my opened hands & upon looking it over, I thought it was good. Do I have to tell you it wasn't? I wish not, because when the true colors burst forth like girl under the bed in the horror film, I felt innocence unravel. I had never realized how naive I have been all my life, even though I had heard it a million times. It took losing everything that I thought I had a secure grip on & a shifting in perspective to see where I had fallen from. Things do that. Circumstances do that. People do that. & you know, it's okay when endings come & the floor gives way. Jesus is still king & you are going to make it through this.
But, sister, can I speak truth over you?
It's not your fault you didn't have mystical premonition & put out the fire before it caught the dry land. It's not your fault you couldn't see past the facade or see clearly the path that you were about to travel. You are only human, & sometimes human means we live breath to breath off of faith... faith no brighter than a dwindling flame, only shedding enough light to cast shadows on your feet below you. Let's be honest, that's what faith is. It's all we have. A match. It's seeing the moonlight overhead & trusting that though darkness blinds our eyes, the starlight will be enough to guide us home. This is it, love. Faith. Trust. Hope. Even when we think we have a clear view of the future & what tomorrows going to look like, we're really just running off a prayer. You held to your faith & hope for the future & you ran with all you knew & you face-planted into the floor. You noticed the paper bag on your doorstep & you picked it up, crossing your fingers, & it wasn't good like you had thought. It's not your fault. I really want to drive that home. Because this is how I felt. I felt like I should've known. I should've seen the signs, listened to the people around me, payed caution to the past. I felt like it was my fault that I been so stupid & given something my all that would flail on the ground no sooner than it had begun. But it wasn't my fault, & it isn't yours either. You weren't created to live half hearted. You were created to give everything all you've got.
So you're on the ocean floor.
Holding your breath, praying to break through to the surface sooner than later. You feel helpless, as the thick water knows no gravity, swashing you around like an astronaut. Everything's a mess, isn't it? I know. You try to remind yourself of everything that is going right in your life in the moment to make yourself feel better & the high is short lived when you can't even think of one thing still standing tall. Let help you.
Here's what you've got, babe. You have got joy. Do you know that? You do. You don't feel it, I know. You'll have that. But believing something off feelings can be silly, as we don't always feel thin or feel beautiful or feel loved, but that doesn't make any of it fact. Joy is your inheritance with Jesus. It's in your DNA. It's buried deep in your bones, waiting for you to exercise your right.
Our hearts ache, but we always have joy. We are poor, but we give spiritual riches to others. We own nothing, & yet we have everything. | 2 Corinthians 6:10
So you have sorrow now, but I will see you again; then you will rejoice, & no one can rob you of that joy. | John 16:22
It's yours. Joy. Here, even in the midst of the pain & sorrow, it's still tangible if you'll allow yourself to experience it. Often we feel guilty when tragedy strikes & in the dead center of tears we find a golden nugget that brings us a glimpse of joy. Don't. All good things are from The Lord himself, & maybe that drop of goodness is his whispered "I love you" in the form of a double rainbow. Cling to it. Remember it. Carry it in the back of your mind for the hours when the tears drown. Seek more. Search it out. Go out of your way playing I-Spy to find Jesus in the storm. Cling. Remember. Joy. You've got this.
My hands write unperfected words, as I sit in the embers of all I thought I used to know for certain. I do nothing but stare at the remains half the time, not even knowing where to reach first, unsure of what still belongs & what never did. It's a sorting process, a page I have never read, a page that remains unturned. Honestly, it doesn't feel good this whole life thing, but when I remember that Jesus promised he wouldn't leave us as orphans, but that he'd come... when I think about his faithfulness carried out through his Spirit within us, all because of the blood... when I remember that he told me His spirit bears goodness, peace, patience, joy,... & when I remember that that Spirit described has taken up home within me... I am forced to stop looking at the little I have & be thankful for the joy that was deemed mine with each nail-pierced hand. Joy is a choice, love. Finding thankfulness in the midst of the storm is our choice. We can choose to rest our eyes on whats before us, or we can choose to lift our eyes to the overcomer of all circumstances. Trust his hands, love. Joy still lives here.
No comments:
Post a Comment