SCREAMING SUNLIGHT

These steps strive to be firm- planted with decision and hope. Over mountains and jagged valleys they move slowly, but surely. Through it all people are watching, and hearts are to be won for a kingdom greater than our own. Yet these steps falter. Sometimes the ground shakes and faith vanishes as ashen clouds roll into the horizon. I want to shed my old skin and find someone new to become; someone braver than myself and someone who does not feel helplessly lost in the middle of the day. The weight of who I am and the ghosts I carry inside myself become like the oppressive heat on an August day, and I cannot rid myself of them.

Screaming sunlight- piercing, direct, and driving out darkness- shines all around me. A pool of mercy. I fall into it. My heart is still heavy; the scars still burn, and while hope is still such a fragile thing, it is also an unbreakable life-line that pulls me out of life's churning waters. They still ask. They still question without understanding that the answer is in the silence. My words echo in the empty rooms and are thrown back at me- loud, even to my own ears. Just do not ever say that I did not try; that I am not trying my absolute hardest. Speaking is difficult and talking to someone who could fill those places of my heart that I had sectioned off with caution tape feels like laying down all my defenses and walls that have been my protection and seclusion. Yet I want more. I realize that now as the sunlight makes me see just who I have become. I want to let the Healer touch the bruises, but it cannot be for them anymore, but for me. This is a journey, and I find I am hopelessly lost without His grace. 

It is not sinking sand, but a firm foundation- His hope gives me strength. In my doubt, I find His mercy reaching out and His faith in my damaged and wandering heart makes me crumble like a little child to my knees. He doesn't give up. He doesn't leave. I fall, but His footing is sure. I fail, but He never does. I lose hope, and He holds my hand. They tell me what I am capable of doing and what the pain will always hold me back from conquering- yet He shows me that He has strength unimaginable and is willing to share it with me. They write me off or place me into a box, and as Jesus holds me, He gently whispers that I now know what the burning ache feels like so; don't do it to anyone else. Words matter, and they shape and change us, not only the ones that have been said to us, but the ones we say to others. It is a strange and scandalous way of living- always having a watch over your lips and love in your heart. And I often fail to love and hold out grace, yet the way He loves with abandon reminds me just of what we are called to do.

Yes, my steps falter. Yet just like a child learns to dance on her daddy's shoes; I am learning to walk with my hand in His and my feet on His, but sometimes I try to do it on my own and I end up in a spiraling hurricane of confusion. Despite my own faithlessness and indecision, I know He will bring me to the end of my journey- safe and loved, with my eyes ever on the prize. I don't have to be afraid anymore.