Tag: sunset
To Remind Me
May the rising vapor of morning remind me that my life is such—a vapor that lasts but a moment—fleeting.
May the intensifying blush remind me that the color of my life is in direct response to the Son’s rising in my life—growing.
May the increasing light of morning remind me that Your presence is ever surrounding— abounding as I struggle here below—persevering.
May the setting of the sun remind me of my limits and that hours spent ought to be well spent, for they will surely end—humbling.
May the brilliant reds and oranges fading into indigo remind me that the best I have to offer is nothing that will last—ending.
And may the last thinning rays remind me that though darkness comes, Light is on the other side of things—rejoicing.
More Desert Gold
Sunset 11 June ’16
The You That’s Me
There is a grieving for opportunities past, opportunities lost. It’s like the world moved on when you just stepped off momentarily to take a quick look—and it’s gone. Not the world,
but the world you thought you knew.
There is a grieving for the identity you had carefully (or maybe not so carefully) nurtured—okay, it kind of just happened,
but the happening seemed real and sure until one day you woke, and you realized you are not important anymore. Well, maybe you weren’t before, but at least you thought you were. Didn’t the world somehow revolve around you?
You are patronized that you can do some things well—and at your age!
When you are young, those things you do well are fuel for an ever expanding future—the first step to a waiting, dazzling world, begging for your grand entrance with its greatest hits.
But those same skills and gifts at 60-something are quaint, anomalies in a fading body and aching mind.
You have had to step aside for all the young, pushing from the rear—
because the utilitarian you is now seen as an impediment to the dreamers closing in.
And you are known more for your aches than your art—
more for your halting step than your racing mind.
Wisdom is underrated by the young; but
for all you have lost, that you have indeed gained,
but there is something muddled in this system when you finally have a substantive message but have lost your audience.
**********************
II Corinthians 4: 7-8, 16-18:
We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.
We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair.
That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day.
For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever!
So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.
Running to Catch Up
Cycles of life, ups, downs, the twirling and twisting threads that interlace a life from time and biology and divine design, and
it speeds up and slows down till I am dizzy.
The simplicity of youth protests into the complexity of aging, and I keep reaching back to finger and figure it all out—what was solid, what ephemeral—to bring forward raw materials for the life I’m living now.
The fears of ago that never happened are the lessons for my future, yet the new has fears of its own—and the lesson to trust is obviously not as well learned as I had hoped.
If I could just slow down this moment to fully analyze and so perhaps be wiser than before—but my now keeps slipping into tomorrows, and I am running to catch up.
Of the Desperate
Brushing the robe, halting hesitant,
two fingers barely touched the hem—
desperation
bleeding pain and disappointment for years and tears.
It was a desperate touch, a face-to-ground, weighted-down touch.
And in the moment He knew, and I knew.
In the jostle of swarming feet, flying dust and flailing pleas,
insignificant me,
me on the fringe,
gripped the fringe of his garment; and in one moment, the tiny thread that held me tethered to life and hope became sacred bonds of the everlasting,
and I was healed.
