Straight from my thoughts to pen and paper. Here is a raw, unedited glimpse into the thought process of me: I don't write as much anymore, but I find that I'm living life a lot more. God, I've been so thankful for your presence lately. I see it in such simplicity. I am at peace and confident in knowing you are working in me. Sometimes we have to be placed somewhere completely foreign for things to change in our lives. Many times a perspective change is all it takes to shift our lives. Your future can change with just one thought. I know that I am getting stronger, wiser, braver everyday. Lord, I question if all this confidence and strength you're building in me is because I am nearing a tough season. In some ways I think it's because I can be a pillar to my family in sad, lonely and changing times. We all can be that to someone. I feel that I can be strong for them and I pray that when I am weak and down they have the confidence and the strength built in them to bring me up. We are a family, like a growing tree, reaching up towards the sky! We are growing strong.
I had an idea for a poem, to encourage both my mother, my sister and I. It's about all of the doubts that we face like: "it's not going to work out, we're not going to make it, or we just don't have the money or the means to attain that." But not in this family--something always works out just in the nick of time or at the right moment. For us things seem to cost less when we need them and work out when we're desperate. We have experienced tiny miracles that have blessed us each and everyday. My mom may be the only one who really gets this: we know how glorious it feels when the milk runs out, it's always on sale--in those fortuitous moments we praise the Lord. We can never stop dreaming because All things truly are possible. ALL things!
As I was running today I had this thought, "it's a shame I only began living just now". At times anxiety, pain--worry is deep in you, it can be a pit that won't leave, resting deep inside of you. The reason why it's there may be very legitimate, but NOW, right now, this breath of oxygen that I am breathing in to fuel my brain, my blood, my lungs. This nowness will never again be. Take in what's around you, grab the opportunity that's here and now, embrace those standing right here in front of you in the flesh; and don't be afraid to miss and to mourn knowing that you should only allow it but a moment to rest upon your heart. For when you miss there, you miss here, and when you miss them, or her or him, you miss me and I miss you and we miss the ones right in front of us as well as the place we are living in right now.
Godly excitement rests in me...you know the kind that doesn't leave because something bad or unexpected happens. It's the kind that is so expectant, so excited, so gripping, so sitting at the edge of my seat, so exploding with overwhelming joy, yet so invisible to the oblivious. I am excited about the 'possible' in impossible, the unknown that always tags along with the known and the consistent--I don't know whether it's constant change or constant steadiness I love more, my emotions always lie. I'm excited about this step, and this step and this step and all these building blocks. I smile just watering dirt day in and day out watering this dirt because I know that one day up out of the dirt will burst a sprout. It doesn't matter if it sprouts tonight or tomorrow or next month, my excitement is the same on day one as it is on day three hundred and sixty-five because the product is known and the process is known. Without the process we will not produce jack. Game day is not more important than training days. In fact its outcome is of less value than all of the days and hours and dedicated, undefeated devotion that you put in to prepare yourself for this day. They call it 'Game day' for a reason, because it's just a game: a culmination of all your hard efforts. But the training and training, the living and living today, right now, tomorrow--this is what matters.
I looked up at a huge banyan tree the other day and thought, "dang, that didn't happen in a day." And neither will my tree, or your tree, or our tree. We are family and we are growing tall. When you are not strong I pray I will be that strength and when I am weak I pray you will empower me to shake off those old dying leaves and not be afraid to be barren, totally stripped naked, exposed through the winter with the seed of hope that when spring comes I will be adorned with blossoms and beauty. The birds will perch on my branches and the bees will befriend my flowers. We will all grow and mature and lift one another up when we've had a hard fall--for we've had many...many, many hopes and dreams traded for poverty or struggles. Many hopes turned bitter and dreams we let slip through our fingers. Our hearts were perpetually sick for many years, but may I remind you that when desire comes it is a tree of life! We are a family and we are growing strong and tall. Though apart we can see above the whole world, above the foliage, the jungles, the forests, above it all and the wind will carry our whispers of love from leave to leave. We are never apart.
For now I and my brother are palms on an island and our mother she has been a willow. He and I can withstand a hurricane and she has weeped over us all, providing shade, and beauty and protection. Together we are a banyan, an oak, an iron. Together we are them all...and what are trees known best for? Standing. Together we will stand tall, together we can withstand anything. Inside of you and I grows a tree of life. Grown from a seed we once rolled between our two fingers and pondered. We will never forget our tiny beginnings. As trees we will never be afraid to leave, to forget, to grow, to change, to breathe out oxygenating the world.
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