No matter how long I have lived and how many lessons I’ve learned, it never fails that my desires betray my selfish heart,
my answered prayers run smack dab into my control and ambition;
and once again, I find the need to humble myself before God,
just do the one next thing He has put before me,
and leave my future in His careful, tender hands.
L onely . . . in this time
O f increasing unbelief, looking frantically, hungering,
N ot for miracles, but for signposts that used to be so faith-clear, undisputed—
E ver-present testament, truth, surety,
L ooking for sanctuary, and I guess . . . just lonely for
Y ou.
***************
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you.
Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”
~John 14:27
My house is haunted.
I detect the wily ways she uses to move about, subtle but there,
unnerving.
My husband notices dishes that I have previously washed—meticulously, I might add—and they will have miniscule specks of baked on something or other. Not enough to be “dirty,” but just enough to be irritating.
She is saying, “I’m here; get used to it.”
Shoes I have put away appear in walkways so that I almost trip over them if I’m not careful. She sprinkles dust in the night. She leaves the light on in the garage, burning electricity, making me burning mad.
What is probably most disturbing is that every so often she appears in my mirror, her white, disheveled hair, her wrinkled brow,
those staring eyes.
I stare back; I glare back, but
I cannot be too irritated for too long because she does look familiar;
and she looks to have stories to tell; and yet,
she seems trapped, prowling around, haunting my house.
One day slips slowly by, minute by minute, filling up its hours.
One life slips slowly by, hour by hour, day by day, filling up its limits, bounded by health and will and intersection with others on this human path; and
the child’s mind is still there behind the lined skin, the greying strands, thinning. And
the insecure teen is still buried somewhere in those pieces of flesh and neuron, hiding
behind her guitar, trying
to convince the world she is worth something—
trying to convince herself.
And the wandering, wondering minstrel is there with her boundless creativity and her endless insecurity, all muddled into one mass of synapses firing
with the only thing giving weakness away, the red blush that fills her cheeks,
announcing to the world that she is floundering in this finding of her way.
And in a corner is the hesitant bride, sure and unsure,
all the same,
loving and yet not knowing how to love, hoping against hope that she gets it right.
And the mother and the teacher and the artisan and the Christian—jumbles of crisscrossed wires, confident, failing, falling and rising,
sometimes laughing, sometimes crying, now tucking it all in the folds of the grey.
In these slowing days, she can pull out a thread at will and feel what it was like. It’s gone, but not. Each memory has settled into its place.
And there should be a contented sigh to see it shuffled and settled; and yet,
when wisdom should frame it all,
when lessons learned should feel so sure,
she feels she is only beginning this journey.
How can it be that this weighty five pounds of flesh should still be wondering and wandering
after all this time?
I am broken; I am mended.
I am broken; I am scarred. Lessons learned and some forgotten,
and I say, “Again, Lord, really—again?”
Round and round, my thoughts conflicted, hope and despair in this raw dance,
sure and steady, moments from the fall,
and I am broken; I am mended.
I am broken; I’m dependent, neither seeing nor knowing at all.
How fragile are these mortal threads that bind us to one another,
friends and family.
That water would be stronger than choices made,
that blood would be thicker than trouble.
But these silken filaments made strong in adversity from without
can easily be stretched and broken in
the calm,
when connection is taken for granted and
peace becomes an excuse for not facing the giants in the room.
O h, no, the dreaded
M onster virus has found our house.
I thought with a
C hange of address, the covid demon would
R un in circles, confused as to where we would end up, but
O bviously, its tracking system was pretty good, and it has
N ailed my husband here in Texas!
In the fog of moral confusion,
in the grey of doubt and fear,
when truth feels more like myth,
assaulted by a pressing world with a million reasons not to believe,
I believe.
Faithfulness,
truth.
I hope in the promises and
let God’s light pierce the swirling darkness.
Grace.
I will not be faithless.
Apronhead 