When The Cloud Shifts

I love clarity.

I love the moment when the cloud shifts and you can breathe again. It seems that I've been under a cloud quite a bit lately... But none of that matters now, in this moment, when I can see. All the shadow is forgotten under the heat of the sun.

Rosa was crying in front of the grocery store when I walked by her on the way to the train. I sat down. Her friend had committed suicide the day before and left his dog behind. She was angry at him, she said, but I knew that was her way of saying her heart was breaking. I didn't try to tell her anything, to fill the space with words that only came from obligation. I just shoved by self-proclaimed dislike of physical contact aside and embraced her. And she cried. And I stayed.

And in that moment, the cloud shifted.

It occurs to me that though she may have had many people put money in her hand today, not one of them had gotten close.

We've gotta get over our natural discomfort of being close to people and just throw ourselves right into the messy mix of loving them. We're still afraid that we'll love too much... as if that's a thing. Sometimes we're stuck in our fog of commerce and compromise and forget that people are hurting around us and they don't need us to have the answers or be super spiritual, they just need a hug. We are all going to keep traipsing about in circles in our boxes of fear until someone finally steps out and loves, someone throws up their hands and says, "What the heck," and just decides to make a fool of himself to get close.  Jesus did that. We can do it too, because He's in us and loves us and yearns to show love to each person.

It doesn't matter what your gifting is; If you cant love, you're not living life the way Jesus intended life to be lived. People are looking for a place to be themselves, a place where they don't have to strive or work for acceptance, a place where they can see past their circumstances. They are looking for a resting place.

I love it when I can see clearly. But I love it even more when I see the cloud move off of someone's countenance and I see them come alive under the weight of love. I love it when someone's eyes shine with the realization that someone loves them enough to come close. I love it when Jesus moves me past what I call love into a deeper place, a place that shines out the fog and illuminates the real Truth.

Get closer. And then get closer again.

All my love,

B

Sleepless Nights

She woke up at 3: 42 on the dot, her mind reeling from dreams that wouldn't let her sleep. Chaos, shapeless forms, flashes of light, dishes breaking, people shouting. She had spent too much money on skim lattes and cheap paperback novels, medium cigarettes and wine with people that didn't care. Voices tormented her, voices of regret and indecision. Voices that told her no one cared, voices that told her she would forever be stuck in this cycle of stupidity, this cycle of longing but never reaching. A memory flashed.

Creaky stairs.
Daddy sitting by the fireplace.
Daddy said he was thinking about stuff.
He couldn't sleep.
How could sleep be lost?

She rolled over onto her stomach and tried to bury her face in the pillow, but it was too late, she was already wide awake, awake to thoughts she didn't want to acknowledge. She wasn't fine. She had cried herself to sleep last night. The regret of trying and failing, trying and regressing clung to her like bad lint, haunted her like a mean ghost. Her soul ached, if ever a soul could.

She was tired of living in a halfway house. She was tired of the in-between. She was so tired of living like everyone else. She wanted to burn! She wanted to die trying to be closer, to give all her life and all her mind and all her spirit in search of knowing the Maker. But she kept getting caught in the flow of life, of living just like everyone else.

But she was so tired of fighting it. Of pushing the boundaries, of pushing for freedom. Of being stretched, pulled, shaped. She often had an overwhelming feeling that she should give up, leave this place. She feel lost, like she should be looking for something else, some other place that she could call home. But she'd felt that feeling before, when she was home.

Where do I go?
What is it that I am looking for?
I am out in the open,
not hidden under Your Love.
Where are you?

She remembered Luthien. She had read of her once, when she was a child. Luthien was a daughter, a lover, a woman in the old tales that Dad had read by her bedside every night. She remembered the words to this day.

Luthien stood upon the bridge, and declared her power; and the spell was loosed that bound stone to stone, and the gates were thrown down, and the walls opened, and the pits laid bare; and many thralls and captives came forth in wonder and dismay, shielding their eyes against the pale moonlight, for they had lain long in the darkness of Sauron.

Do I have power like that?

Do I have any power at all?

If You don't come, I have no hope to carry on.

She could not love by herself, not one could without the cross, because everyone was stuck in their boxes of pain, they were all under a veil of hurt that blinded them to see any soul for what it truly was. 

We are a broken people,

Made up of broken edges

And shattered pieces.

We long to be close,

But fear the tearing

of our hearts

again.

But she knew the cross was more than a story. Christ was more than a theological idea to be pondered and dissected by men. He could speak for Himself and heal the way He said He could. He was not dead. He was the One who could take man's twisted thinking and warped perception and transform it into a beautiful thing, a thing that would endure to the end. 

She could stand, fearless, not as a weakling but as a warrior. In her pain she could love, and in her love she would never be weak, for she now loved with His love. She worshipped Him and escaped from her veiled, selfish, blind heart into His perfect one. It was so beautiful, more beautiful a communion than ever she imagined a communion could be. She was in the Unveiling. She could approach the throne of all thrones. She could drink of the same stream that she would drink afterward, when the race was run and the mountain was climbed, the water that flowed from the living Fountain. Now she saw every soul in the right light, through His eyes and His heart.

He is with me, 

In me,

and for that I have found my joy, 

even in sleepless nights and in torment. 

He has called me to my destiny, 

drawn me close to His hope, 

sheltered me with His song.


I pray you realize you are a warrior today.

All my love,

B
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Author's Note: Sometimes I write in the third person about myself. It's a sort of therapeutic processing that helps me see what's actually going on in my heart. While a rather strange practice, I recommend it to someone stuck in their own head and in need of a way to express what they are actually feeling. 

The In-Between

Rosa was sitting on the steps of the grocery store as I walked home from work, nursing a cigarette, which I supposed to be rather hard to come by when you didn't have much money. She was Aboriginal, I knew that by the crazy mop of salt-and-pepper hair that stuck every which way off her head, and the way she mumbled her words. She was dressed in a thick coat, a necessity on a cold night like tonight. The weatherman said the rain was supposed to go on all week. I wondered if she was warm enough.

I squatted down on the sidewalk. "Rosa, how are you? You remember me?" I asked her. She had come into the restaurant earlier that day asking for a flat white, 3 sugars. I gave it to her.

Her face lit up with the glint of recognition."Can I get you anything, dear? It's gonna be a cold night tonight."

She put out her cigarette with an air of regret. "I wouldn't mind a smoke."

So I bought a pack and we sat down and had a smoke together. Not exactly something you'd preach on in church, but whatever. I told her I loved her and that I'd be back again soon, and she told me I had a good heart and soul. And then I kept walking.

Most of our lives are spent in-between one thing and another. Millions of moments in a day are not occupied with work, studies, things to check off your to-do list. They are just that: the in-between. 

It sometimes feels like this whole year has been an in-between. In-between what? I don't know. It doesn't matter. God rests here, as he does with all the seasons. I am in love with my Savior, and I find Him in the quiet, in the moments I am finished with one thing and waiting on another thing to come to pass. I don't need to wait for Him, for He is here, now, in this moment, while I'm making dinner, while I walked home, while I rode the bus to work this morning. I am no longer afraid to stop whatever I am doing and let Him speak to me in the silence. I no longer ignore the moments I have nothing planned, for it is often when He has something planned.

How do we connect with eternity in everyday life? How do we transform not only the big moments of grandeur, but the small, seemingly insignificant moments into a life full of love? How do we become people who change the world? 

By filling the in-between with the truth of His voice.

It is how we spend the in-between moments that determines our destiny.

I hope your days are filled with His love and the sweet, simple life that lies within Him.

All my love,

B