You have walked me along a journey God,
walked me down a path through nothingness ...
You walked me through a process of letting go, of home, of relationship, of financial stability, of loved ones, of family.
You walked me through a relationship where a business grew into prosperity, and the status symbols of success began to appear ... then there was a junction, an ethical junction that called me to respond from the visceral knowledge of what is right ... but you prepared me Lord, you prepared me to let go of trappings by bringing me in my journey to Christ.
My life such as I knew it fell apart.
When I dropped to my knees and put my very face to the ground,
your own self-made bridge: Jesus - He is the one who came to me,
whose hand I took and stood up again, on legs scarce capable of supporting me.
You brought me from a huddled lump on the ground,
weeping,
wanting death,
to a standing, running, breathing, live-loving place again.
God you brought me through Jamaica in 2009,
through the summer of 2009 with all its angers, griefs and unsureness.
You brought me to seminary: through scripture unfolding, through a clinical understanding of my own spiritual journey - from the first memories I have of myself -
a child digging dirt in a yard talking with you while making mud-pies.
You brought me with love God,
out of the church street home of James and Ange, clothed in love and friendship, to my home with the Arnolds ...
To my own home again, replete with space, light and love.
I do not misunderstand you God;
YOU are my faithful, loving providing God:
Your arms,
Your hands,
They hold me in all times and in all places.
When I struggle to hold on to a thorny branch,
A rotting branch, a breaking limb...
You wait patiently to catch me -
To envelope me into a new reality, a reality more bountiful and enriching than the old -
a new reality that will teach me about abundance in ways the thorny, breaking branch could never do.
My muscles are puny, weak, irrelevant things beside the strength and rigour you offer.
The thing I hold on to is always less than,
will always be less than the glory you have in mind for me.
The peace I seek to make for myself in the world
cannot even begin to measure up to YOUR PEACE that surpasses all understanding -
the peace that goes beyond mortal, somatic, bodily assurity and rests
like a gently landed dove on the deepest places of the soul.
You have blessed me God indeed ...
you have provided me with dreams and visions along the way that I may know with surety your presence in my life.
You have lifted my darkness with light,
obliterating my ignorance with dreams of humming birds, hanging flowers, and the diligence of the nectar-loving small bird that cannot pierce but must surely, slowly and laboriously make its way to your sweet love by crawling into the very heart of the flower, footstep by footstep.
You have shown me God how you see people, all people, as light,
regardless of the darkness they hold within.
You have shown me love - your love -
with gentleness and joy you have taken me as your beloved one
when I was most broken and depleted.
No fences, roads, heights or depths separate me any longer from you God.
You love me even when I am a brat who holds stubbornly to my own way, my own will,
after praying into the night on bended knee,
earnestly,
for your will in my life!
You smile the faithful, knowing smile of a patient father who knows my tantrum arises from the fears of my own terrifying experiences of hurt, heartbrokenness - at the hands of mortals, egos, whims and false realities,
mere facades of the popular common readership and audience.
You present me with a path and a lamp at my feet, and you patiently, faithfully await the passing of my fearful clinging to the old, thorny, rotting, broken branch to which I cling -
my feet dangling in mid-air with nothing against which to find purchase.
Blood runs down my arms as the thorns pierce my foolish, faithlessly clinging hand.
I cry, kicking the air in my frustration.
I am foolish God ... so foolish ... and my foolishness prolongs my suffering.
Wormwood smiles a satisfied smile, for I so effectively torture myself by hanging on.
Your fingers brush the tears from my cheeks,
your free hand moved the hair off my forehead, out of my eyes - my sweaty, desperately clumping hair.
Your lips kiss my forehead with an assurance:
you are there.
Even in my fucked up, foolish, fearful, faithless, unwillingness to let you,
you are there.
You whisper in my ear: "my child, my daughter, your hands are bleeding, your muscles aching because you hold to the false security of a thorny, rotting, broken branch. I know you. You are my beloved. Hold on until yu are ready to let go. I am here for you. My own bleeding hands will dress yours when you are ready to let go. Or when you weary of fear and simply cannot hold on to your false security anymore. I am here my beloved; I am here."
I feel your gentle exhalation against my ear.
The patient sigh of a loving father,
waiting for His child to come to her dimwitted senses.
I know without a doubt that you are there,
with a journey more abundant in blessings awaiting me.
I know you will give me the time to recuperate.
You will build me up for the journey you have in mind.
I know your will in my life will bring me to my fullest flowering in your image and likeness.
I know you see me as light;
I know you see all your broken, wounded, patched up, fucked up children as luminous light, your own light, each and every one.
I know only you can bring me into being the light you see in me ... only in oneness with you can I lose the noneness of me.
Thank you God, for loving me so, for loving me as I hold hardheadedly to the old, thorny, broken branch, as I pray for the courage to let go.
Thank you God for being my patient, loving, understanding God
my God who gets me,
the God understanding of me.
