Security

I don't know what it is about writing. Words on a page. But so much more. There are boundaries with words, words define the inexplicable, they fence in the abstract and intangible, and create substance. There is something immaterial about words, and yet they themselves are the closest thing we have to connecting the immaterial with the material - for words are visual.

Perhaps that is why I find healing in expression of my soul. Yet I am tentative. For the intent of this blog is to edify, to somehow bring light and hope to the darkness others are facing. To bring from my darkness the light and hope I have found. I fear I will not succeed in such an endeavor, at least not tonight. For tonight, my darkness is profound.

Proceeding the worship service, it snagged me, overtook me, as if a thief had mugged me in my walk home from church. Before this point, freedom had come upon me, the longest bout I have experienced yet.  It lasted so long, I had nearly come to believe that perhaps this journey was approaching its destination. And then, at the benediction, the tears welled up within me, and my soul was clouded yet again by the impenetrable darkness. I was thrust into utter despair. And I do not use that word lightly.

As the betrayals of my darkness surfaced, and came to light, it became apparent that I ached for freedom. I thought I wanted security, definition, closure, resolution -- but to my surprise, what I really desired was freedom. To burst from the bubble, to shatter the enclosures surrounding me, to breath the air of renewal and restoration.

During the worship, it seemed the Holy Spirit wanted me to see just how spectacular were the works of Christ - to give blind eyes sight, to bring words to the mute, to raise someone from the dead? These happened -- they are undeniable facts. Jesus, whose feet grew dusty from the soil of our earth, Jesus is different, new, alive. Jesus is Freedom. He wanted me to believe that there was so, so, so much more to this world around me.  He enlivened me to believe in the impossible...and then thrust me into despair. 

It befuddles me...and yet, as I wrestle with these stormy clouds upon my soul, I know what I am fighting for: Beauty and Truth. There are whispers of glory, if you listen hard enough, beneath the surface of the wind; something far more abundantly beautiful than even the most creative among us can comprehend. He fights within me, fights for faith to believe that what I long for really is possible, really does exist, and is worth waiting for.

And so I go on, longing, waiting, quiet in the stillness, aching. Hoping. Holding on, and waiting until the storm clouds dissipate at His command. For He commands the sun -- and the clouds. And I am His, embracing this gift He is giving me - the gift of discovering there is much, much more to this life than what our eyes can behold.

And that is what makes life worth living.