fearless

Fire flickering through glass. It lights me, warm. Alive.

The pounding of waves over my heart. The thundering weight rushing over my soul.

Gasping to breathe. Just to breathe.

The unraveling of being seen. Exposed. Heart bare.

And Fearless...

The fight welling up in the deep. Never to let it be less. To guard this heart with my life. My life.

Found.

A lifetime spent searching. Grasping at invisible dreams. Dreams born of fear, desperation. Wounds.
Broken, slipping through open fingers. Falling down.

Shattered glass beneath my feet.

Flames burning white hot. Unquenchable.

Hands open. Willing.

The battle seeming endless. And worth every agony. Crawling through the trenches. Waiting.

Every fragment of time filled with prayer. Pleading.

Heart bound in Grace. Whole.

Wind brushing across my cheek. A familiar curve. Sliding between clean sheets.

Seen.

Worth every tear. Every unbearable, crushing failure.

Every careless judgement poured out by those speaking blindly.

This heart. My heart.

Whole.

Fearless.


"With your very own hands you formed me;
 now breathe your wisdom over me so I can understand you.


When they see me waiting, expecting your Word,
 those who fear you will take heart and be glad.


I can see now, God, that your decisions are right; 
 your testing has taught me what's true and right.


Oh, love me-and right now!- hold me tight!
 just the way you promised.


Now comfort me so I can live, really live;
 your revelation is the tune I dance to...


Let me live whole and holy, soul and body, 
 so I can always walk with head held high."


Psalm 119:73-80

Refining

The dark of night is creeping across the sky and I feel the disappearing.

The anguish of the unseen. Heart wrenching and cracked. Writhing to be free of the desire for love. Free of desire.

I cannot stand carrying the weight of it. The crushing force of longing. The gravity of need.

Heart spilling out. Wounds bared open. The pieces of me thrown about the room. Muscle aching from the violence of lamenting. The agony of a soul crying out in complaint. A Trusting heart weeping with the blood of dreams slipped through fingers.

And I am found. In the anguish, the obliterating explosion, suddenly my face is again there in the mirror. In the eyes looking back, I see it, the spark of me. The Life.

There is cost to the striving. The slow disappearance that makes your own features unrecognizable. The becoming invisible. It is cost. Immeasurable.

And when you notice. When suddenly in passing the mirror there is not vacancy but eyes familiar. When you look long and there is a trace of smoke - the smoldering ember of the self you buried deep. Then what?

When the wounds stop oozing and dry out. When the last strands have frayed. What then?

What guiding compass is there? What choice held out before you?

Him. Only Him.

Only. Trust. Only. Clinging.

To choose the very heart beating in my chest. That is the hardest part. The constant battle.

The words that repeat over and over... "you are valuable", as if in some persuasive debate.

Words I've never believed. Words that slip over me like a silk sheet falling to the floor. Slipping from fingers to weak to grasp.

But He breaks in, crashing. A tornado inside my heart. Cleansing the darkness in me.

The strong command of a Loving Father. "You must know your Worth."

And that, that moment is where the crawling begins. The scraping across the gravel, picking debris from my wounds.

The Refining.

"I have refined you, but not as silver is refined. Rather, I have refined you in the furnace of suffering." Isaiah 48:10 NLT

run

I long for it. Feeling it deep in my soul.

I want to run.

To pound pavement and listen to the sound of Life in my chest. To feel the cool of the quiet morning. Moments full with the turning page of a new day. The silence bursting with the sound of only Grace. 

Clouds giving way. Peeling back as Light pours in, at first just caressing the tops of trees, and then strong and warm on my face.

To run. To do nothing but push one foot in front of the other. To just be. For a moment.

The struggle stops and I am only breathing. Only feeling the Life in me. The Freedom.

The space in time where I am. I just am.

There is no ache. No scattered thoughts. No striving heart. No fighting my own will.

I just am. In Him. Alive.

Pavement or trail. Gravel or rocks and mud. Wherever my heart seeks Him.

Whether my soul is full with Joy or floundering under the weight of pain, I run. To Him. With Him.

There is no stopping it. No ceasing. It pulls at me like the need of water. The Thirst for Him.

Where the whirling stops and my life is only Grace. Only Love. There is no time. No measure of worth. Only Life.

I run to go Home.

"...let us rid ourselves of everything that gets in the way, and of the sin which holds on to us so tightly, and let us run with determination the race that lies before us."  Hebrews 12:1

broken

The ache burning in the darkness. The fire of my soul searing its way to the surface.

All this heaviness. This pain.

I'd like to pour it out. Open my hands and let it fall with boiling blame.

But I know it belongs here in my own hands.

This pain. Deep agonizing pain that comes from years of carrying this whole life. Years of holding it all together.

Years of driving myself into the ground pleading their happiness. With my own hands, my own prayers, fashioning a family, the family that I had dreamed of.

And when I suddenly realize I cannot, will not, create a life by myself. Then all of that pain is almost insignificant in comparison to the pain of knowing I have let my worth slip through the cracks. The light of me buried so deep there is only a flicker left.

I have poured out all I have. Held onto emptiness. And let it be enough.

And there is the scalding pain. I settled for the least.

Not in a person, but in the offering. The presence. The effort.

As though I was worth nothing more...

When my soul whispered, "this is not enough", I quieted it with work, with doing.

If I could just do enough. Make it easy enough. Then there would be joy.

The wrenching pain twists through my heart. The agony of neglect. Of not being seen.

The offering of all only to be left in silence. And letting it be enough.

This is the brokenness. The neglect of my own heart. The slow disappearing...

These shattered pieces, that as I struggle to pick them up dig their jagged edges into my hands reminding me of the choice to stifle my own heart.

To allow our own wounds, that is the greatest sorrow...

What unimaginable sacrifice then the offering of His body to be broken, crushed simply for the sake of Love. Giving His life with no offering in return...


"But He was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed."  Isaiah 53:5