Waiting.
What are you waiting for, oh familiar cursor? For my hands to type the rhythm your purpose craves? Longing to be used, longing to dance with my thoughts, turning thoughts into words that line the pages of an empty canvas, no longer blank. Like a brush in the hands of a painter, you and I together can create the painting that brings into focus that which the reader has only caught in the shadows. Light and dark, war and peace, love and hate, beauty and that which perhaps has not before been perceived as beautiful...all of this, the brilliant paint. An array of colors on a pallet in my mind, waiting, ever waiting for the cursor to bring to life all that they are with the rhythm of the dance, tapped out upon the black keys.
What would we paint then? What would our words create for those whose minds will be filled with the painting we have wrought? Come, tell me, what will our dance render in the dark of the night? What emotions will tint the colors painted across the empty canvas of those who wait and watch and read? Shall we leave them sad, swiping dusky blues and deep grays, showing them what weakness and longing feel like? Perhaps, you and I, we will talk of things that bring forth happiness, joy, bright yellows and purples, violet and indigo, green for contentment and silver for mystery. For surely, with each thought created, another stroke has been swept across a mind we do not know, writing words upon their hearts.
So what will it be?
Oceans, with shores of steel gray, haunted by the call of seagulls above. The wind blows across your face, kissing it with the salt of an ancient time gone by. Standing there, you are engulfed by the thought of how vast and wide and fathomless the voice of the waves are, crashing against the gray earth into which your toes dig deep. Slowly, walking in the shallows, you drag your feet against the creamy foam the tide has ferried in, wondering if the Little Mermaid did indeed become sea foam on the waves? Would you have the courage to allow the man you love to love someone else? Would you let him go, choosing death, choosing to become the milky bubbles on the top of all the waves from then into eternity? There, for a moment you feel the aching of a fictional heart who made such a choice. And for a few moments, staring out at the white capped waves in the distance, your heart is proud of the girl (who feels quite real to you) who chose to love without condition, without expectation of it being returned. A smile drifts across your face, imagining what others would think of your sympathy for a character in a story...and so, you begin once again to slowly walk down this silver shoreline, watching as the sky fades from brilliant orange, to the softest of pinks and lavenders, to a dusky blue and the deepest of navy. And a Voice on the wind whispers gently, calling deep, with a love unfathomable.
:Scene Change:
The pines are giants, stretching their arms away from massive bodies. Slender aspens bend back and forth in the gentle breeze, ballerinas of the mountains on which they perform. The carpet of the mountain floor is made up of emerald and muted greens, their varying shades displayed by tall grass and stubby sage. The path is beat down before you. A gentle slope up, not too difficult, but not flat enough to be quite easy. A crystal clear creek gurgles and laughs, swirling and spinning past and around and through the rocks in its way. Some are large and the song sung by these luminous waters is louder here, protesting a bit at the great mass it must navigate. Laughingly, it encounters smaller stones beneath and in its midst, not minding to smooth their rough edges, singing of the One who created it for such a purpose as this, to smooth that which needs smoothing. You walk to the edge of this icy little creek, unable to resist its merry song, sucking in a breath as its frigid waters flow around your sandal clad feet. Standing in this water, melted from the snow that sits at the top of these mountains, you throw back your head, shading your eyes from the brilliant sunlight filtered through the tall pines and dancing aspens, staring into the deep cobalt of the sky above. And you are lost in the depths of the picture overhead. Cotton candy clouds, stark white, waltz slowly on their stage, covering the blinding sun if only for a few moments. Birds flit from here to there, landing in first this tree then that, swooping and diving across this blue canvass. And a Voice on the breeze whispers gently, calling deep, with a love unfathomable.
:Scene Change:
A thick covering of branches and leaves seems to protect you from the outside world. The air is fat with the song of bluebirds, mockingbirds, and jays, singing to the glory of His name. You are lost in a sea of green. The sunlight itself is filtered through these thick green layers, making the very air render shades of hunter, emerald, sage, fern, and olive, shimmering and otherworldly, all displayed before your eyes. Walking slowly, leaves from newly born trees reach out, gently touching your arms and legs as you saunter by. The musty smell of fallen tree trunks and layers of dead leaves that carpet the forest floor beneath, rise up with each step taken. You are quite certain, if you stay hidden in this thick, hard wood forest long enough, you are sure to run into Mr. Tumnus, who most certainly will ask you to tea, where there will be toast with honey and toast with sardines...and cake (obviously)...and so, you walk even slower, just to be sure you don't miss each other. Thoughts of Aslan and all he represents, dance through your mind. And a Voice on the air whispers gently, calling deep, with a love unfathomable.
:Scene Change:
The night is deep. The darkness deeper still. Pulling and tugging, the war that rages all around you unseen would, in this moment, swallow you whole. Your soul cries out, screaming to be rescued, knowing it needs to be, but unseeing in the black depths that surround it. Lost within all that would decimate it, hope is but a mere shadow, and shadows are nonexistent in the dark, and so, it would seem it is nothing. There is no hope, for there is no light. And a voice whispers, terrifying and sinister in the deepness around your soul, telling of how the Light is but a dream, not real, not caring, and you. are. alone. You are his. Forever.
Stop!
There...though there is no point of reference in this pit, black and fathomless...there....there, is something. For the black is not as deep, turning to a gray before your eyes. And suddenly, as the sun breaks forth over the mountains when it rises, there is Light! Burning and piercing, slicing through the deep dark, cutting through the lies and exposing them for what they are. And the Voice that whispered on the wind and breeze and very air around you, calls out loudly, calls deeper than the darkness ever could, and every fiber of your soul responds. For this is what you have been waiting for! This is the One whom your soul has longed for all your life, before you even knew it did, before you ever thought of being rescued, you longed to be fulfilled. Now, the darkness has vanished, the voice of the one who has lied to you all your days has been exposed, and here, now, in this moment, you stand before a gaze that pierces through every fiber of your being. Your head hangs low, you cannot seem to lift it, to even lift your eyes to what you know is waiting for you. For what you know you'll see looking back at you. Shame, guilt, loathing, unworthy, all the words the enemy has whispered to your soul for far too long come flooding in like a dam broken. Head hanging you know you cannot bear to look into this gaze that will pierce you unto death.
"Beloved..."
Like a balm unto your soul, that gentle Voice wraps around your aching heart.
"My child, my heart, look up..."
"Father, I cannot! I cannot. My head is too heavy, my heart too dark. Oh, Yeshua, I cannot for it is too much for me to bear!"
A hand cups your face, and gently, lifting your chin, the weight falls away with the help of the hand pierced. Summoning every bit of strength in you, slowly, your eyes open.....there, where you expected to truly find all that the lies had whispered in the dark night of your soul, all you see instead is a love unfathomable, gazing back at you from eyes more beautiful than any you've ever seen.
The painting is finished. You are left, oh Reader, with just this....This is just the beginning. Your God loves you too much to leave you where you are. There is an endless frontier He would traverse with you, but you must not settle for staying where He found you. Take His hand, get up, and begin to walk out the journey He has set before you. Seek Him with your whole heart and the darkness will never again enter into your life. Oh no, it will not be easy, for there is a whole world unseen set against you. The path will be hard, there will be times when you believe you cannot go on, and yet, He is greater than all that. For the adventure is what makes life worth living. And the joy and fulfillment found in the journey with Him, this is worth the struggle of every step taken. So, live as big as your God is! Live in such a way that your life is forever altered and the only explanation for you is Jesus...
"Giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light. For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins."-Colossians 1:12-14"The Lord appeared to him from afar, saying, 'I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness." -Jeremiah 31:3
© Jade Valcarcel 2013. All rights reserved
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