Photo of Columbia River Gorge – Washington State, May 2020
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We see what we want to see.
We seekwhat it is that we wish to be.
We shift for the things we think we need.
We search for promises while our hearts bleed.
We succeed when gray turns to colors and we believe.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. ~James 1:17
Well, the thought occurred to me as I have watched the autumn weather change from the overcast of gray clouds, to blowing winds and sideways rain, to the rainfall suddenly stopping and the clouds breaking to reveal splotches of blue beyond the gray curtain. Then snow, really snow, which quickly changed back to drizzling rain.
Before the sunshine slowly peaks out playing hide and seek, then disappears and the sky again began dumping buckets of raindrops the size of marbles and then back again to clear skies of forever blue and bright sunshine. Over and over, it does repeat, round and round it goes as the world moves on and it’s still all shit!
We cannot be everything that everybody wants us to be!
Hell, sometimes we cannot even be what we want to be!
These fears haunt me invading my dreams while I sleep and taunt me from the moment I wake, never leaving me alone. These voices in my head that scream condemnation walk beside me each day.
There are doors swinging open and opportunities that beckon and yet… I am so confused. The ideas and possibilities swirl around me in a chaos of hurricane winds and in flashes of lightning that carve the midnight sky, leaving me tired.
Does anyone care?
I silently scream. While I sit here quietly and watch the seconds tick slowly by, distracted by nothing and everything all at the same time.
My thoughts are a mess; my heart skips beats to a rhythm only it can hear as I wonder at the absurdity of it all. There is no choice but to embrace the only absurd choice that is available.
Do I dare? Would you?
Do I have the courage? Do you?
To believe in hope, when our faith as small as a wisp of smoke. A single light far off in the dark that is all. A small thing that keeps me going before my hearts stops beating, while I keep hearing the banging sounds of drums repeating.
The world has gone mad, each person, each mother’s son, everyone!
There is hate and evil, remorse and regret, an eternal tag team we meet to do battle in the ring of our hearts. This ugliness and fear seek to devour our souls, as cruelties unfold.
Mercy
Grace
Faith
Hope
Love
Are all that can stand against!
Our lives’ are brief, as memories linger, and the finality of death overshadows the past. Nothing makes sense. Our memories of yesterday are quickly gone, replaced by the tragedies seared into our brains through social media and the six o’clock news.
We need a lifeline, a belief in a hope that does not disappoint. Future memories of what could be, we see a light in the dark, a beacon of hope, and a reason to go on.
For if we do not, the world will move on and we will find ourselves repeating the refrain, “It’s all still shit!”
There are moments and events in each of our lives that leave us wondering and often searching. For answers to questions that rattle in our minds. And, yet even if we found those answers we so desperately seek, would they provide the comfort we seek?
I wonder…
I believe that some questions very well may remain unanswered this side of the undiscovered. To quote CS Lewis –
Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable.
Not that our seeking and questions are nonsense, quite the opposite. They are our hearts calling out for truth in a world that is so often void of the truth.
So, I encourage you to continue to believe despite the silence. Isn’t faith believing in the unseen? And a hope that your life will be blessed by grace. Remembering that you matter and there is a love that changes people.
Sometimes, it seems as if we are flying to close to the sun. Our lives are scorched with a myriad of questions and our faith is tethered to a tattered string of emotional turmoil.
In those times there is hope!
And maybe in those times it is God himself who is taking us on this flight. To burn away the self-centeredness and pride that the enemy so easily snares us in.
Remember who your real enemy is and it is not you!
And, lest you forget or need reminding. Do not be afraid, just believe for you matter and the world needs you.
We are meant for so much more, we were meant for life and life abundantly!
We search, we seek to find. What do we desire? To fill our heart’s empty place, with the extravagance of holy fire.
Will we ever be satisfied?
As we sojourn between the eternities,
what can we hope to find?
A raging fire in a single candle flame. A master symphony in one single note. A rainbow of color in single drop of rain. A stretch of beach in one single grain of sand. A lush forest overgrown in a single leaf. A year’s harvest in a single piece of fruit. A story of timeless truths in one single word. A whole life lived in one single simple moment.
We strive, we slave to find. Do we believe our desires? When all is freely given if only, we would surrender and just believe.
![Phonto[1]](https://malekoarts.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/phonto1.jpg)
Mark Wayne - Author and Warrior 