Silence, again.

I am lost. Between broken and healed. Forgotten between the cracks. When all on Earth means nothing to me, nothing that calls to me or hears me. I know He is here. And with everything, when I call He hears. He comes. He feels. He holds. He mends. What a long process this seems to be. An unending, winding road into the far off distance. And it seems nothing but up, up, and up. Why am I here? How can I move from there to there? How come no one responds? How come no one cares to hear my voice? I talk and talk and talk. But am not heard. I am not answered. I just speak to the walls around me. How can I be so alone? So lost? How can You put me here? Why? Why? You hear me, but why will you not respond? Why do I deserve a blank stare? Why don't I deserve an answer?

Of Course

Now that all of you has faded away, I see who is standing, staring me right in the face. And I see what I should have seen all along.

Being Here

Being here, it's almost like things aren't so complicated. It's good to wake up in your own bed and not have to get dressed until one o'clock. It's good to see all the people you've been missing all year. It's good to see your family. And it's all good, until ten o'clock at night, when the coffee shop closes and all that's left here are faulty street lights to stare at. Then you remember that you wish you were back at college- when life starts at ten PM, and you had places to be and parties to attend. When life only circled around when your next test was and when you could stop studying. That's about the time when the simple allusion fades away, and being here goes right back to complicated. When adjusting to life back at home becomes a challenge and everyday is a struggle to find excitement in boredom. When the neon open sign flashes off, and you realize you aren't where you want to be. And this is the hardest part. Coming home and finding out how the person you changed into acts here. How your college self and your college reality adjusts to the home reality. While the homework list may become nonexistent and the worry about where the hell to park or what grade you made on your last test drifts away, you find yourself lost. Lost somewhere between college and home. And you can't figure out how to put who you are now in the shoes you left in your closet when you went away. It's the tearing down process before you can rebuild that tests us. We left this city one way and returned another, and we all know that the bubble here doesn't like change. We were all molded the way our high school wanted and now we come back trying to put a square in a circle. The truth is, I thought coming home would be easy. Just slip right back into a life with nothing to do and nothing to worry about. But when is it ever that easy? I go places that use to bring me comfort, yet now I walk through the door and get no sense of belonging. I thought it would be nice to have no math homework to accomplish, however the aching feeling that I have something I'm forgetting to do, doesn't go away. Being here, there is only a faint feeling of security. And right when you feel it, you look at the clock or the calendar or the lack of text messages in your inbox and you remember that you're not in Kansas anymore. We find ourselves staring at the far Emerald city without any idea of how to get there and there's no one around to sing silly songs with or help you find your way. It's just you and a million obstacles. That's the battle we are fighting, and we'll finish it someday hopefully. Maybe one day we'll wake up and be saddened that we'll have to leave again in the fall. Maybe. Or possibly, we'll just learn to live with our lives being crammed into the cookie cutter way we use to be. Or maybe we'll be comfortable being lost in the fields of flowers right before Emerald city that will make us fall asleep. And there we'll finally be able to find rest, numb from the feeling that we don't belong at home alone at 9:30 at night, and we can avoid the coffee shop that isn't 24-hours. We can turn our eyes away from what makes us miss college, and can dream of the day we will return. And that's what summer seems to be here. This town, our town, no longer having anything to offer us, but boredom and a Whataburger. And while we have our families and old high school friends, everything is so different to us. We are not who we were last summer, and being here will never be the same. 

Wrapped In Light

Four
there were four us there
for what ever reason

This is my mess of an explication. Does it really matter if it makes sense? At this point, does one and one have to equal two? It was a mess. It still is a mess, turning itself from side to side in my mind. And it's a lot. It's a lot of a mess. Never ending, no sight of the beginning or the end. Everything in our lives seemed to have led us to that exact point in time, at that exact location. In the midst of this mess, it was just exactly how our worlds were supposed to be. A complex mess that would turn us upside down, and shake our core.

There were four of us
Five, but only four
Exactly where we were supposed to be
doing exactly what we were supposed to be doing

We could have ran
But we didn't
We could have turned our backs
But we didn't

We all accepted it
Took it into our hands
And then handed it to God
It was all we could do

And that is where the miracle lies
That is where he came in
And that's where we all put on our cloaks
Cloaks of light

If I could take my eyes and give them to you I would. If I could explain these emotions in words, translate it into some replication to show you, I would. But this is unexplainable, worse than goose bumps or chills, more than senses or brain waves, more than neurons. This goes farther than anything of this world. Anything of our world. And should you believe me or not, it doesn't matter to me. My eyes know what I saw. My hands know what I felt. And my soul knows. And that is what matters to me.

There's a web
That God weaves
And all four of us,
we saw that, first hand

We all know
We all believe
We all stood strong
Wrapped in Light

If I could write more, explain more, I would. But words fail. Everything fails. There is nothing that could make you understand what happened two nights ago. Nothing that could give you even the slightest inclination of what we experienced.

There are points in our lives that change us, that mold us, that create us in the image we were supposed to be. Points in the web that God ties knots at. Knots that will change every thing about us. And that was one of them for the four of us. That was one point that we will never forget. No time, no drug, no other memory can erase two nights ago. That will be with us forever. No end. But that is all I can see. That is all I can explain. And we will always hold tight to what we know, what we saw, and what we experienced. Our cloaks will always be in reach.

"Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour." -1 Peter 5:8

"Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." -Isaiah 41:10

Grasp of Faith

We all go through pain. We all go through sorrow. We all feel lonely, and feel like no one is there to reach out. Why are we, the human race, so stubborn? To place ourselves in our boxes, embarrassed to share what we feel with not even one other person. The ironic thing is, everyone has a person. Someone that God put in their life to help them through chaos and help them up. We all fall, and need help up, and God puts hands there to reach out. So, why do we ignore them? Or more likely, why do we blind our eyes from what God wants us to see? There are little things that can keep us going, small reminders like butterfly kisses from the wind that God places in our paths; yet we ignore them. We focus on the storm that is either brewing, storming, or passing away. We don't turn our eyes to heaven and see past the clouds to the God beyond. We selfishly place ourselves at the center of our world, at the center of our storm and see no one out there. We say no one cares, and feel lonely. And before we know it we're blaming and fighting, when we should confiding. We blind ourselves to the shelter of hands that are there.

These hands, my hands, are here. I am reaching. Thank God for shedding light upon them. But you still have to hold on. I can graze your cheek and stroke your back, but you have hold on tight before I can help you up. I always needed you to need me like I needed you. And it seems now that you always did. But you never let me in. You never let me take your hand. And even with the light reflecting off my open palms, I can only hope that you will take my hands now.

So, will you?

To My Father

Thank you
for all that you have done
all that you are doing
and all that you still have to do

Thank you
for being the wisdom in my words
the love behind my actions
and the content feeling that clings to me

Thank you
for calming a raging storm
opening the closed door
and bringing me back to the light

Thank you
for opening his eyes
shaping my life
and sending the million miracles I see everyday

Amen

Give and Take

There is a rise and fall of waves in an ocean. A time to live and a time to die. A time to smile and a time to cry. And like everything, there is a time to let go, move on, walk away from battle. But today is not that day. Our time is not up. Do not falter, or question, or back up. Today is not that day. Nor is tomorrow or the next day. Do not give up. Stop thinking, start feeling. Fall in love with me with all my faults and all our flaws, because we can still be a beautiful mess. Is that not what most of life is? Just fall for me. Please. Because I fell for you, and it will suck if I have to help myself back up.