"The way is
straight and narrow..."
- Mary Baker Eddy I come to You
confused,
uncertain,
pleading,
begging You
trusting You
to
give
me direction,
guidance...
please
put my feet
on the clear
path and
show me
the way,
Your way...
dear Father,
You know
that
when I turn my
heart
in Your direction,
I am not
looking for a
broad path,
a meandering road
with
many options...
all I want
is for
You to help me
do what's
right,
to give me precise
directions,
to point out the
obvious
waymarks,
to carve out
a deep
swath of clarity...
a path free
from
the
wandering,
divergent,
tangential,
circuitous
route of
indecision
and choices...
I want direct,
clear,
straight,
narrow...
the path
you have promised
I trust it,
I count on it,
I lean all
my hopes,
the weight of
my desires,
into You
I am tired
of my wondering,
wandering
ways...
broad,
vague,
and indirect
give me
straight and
narrow,
so I can see
beyond myself
and
find
You...
only You,
and
Your plan
for
me... "...I will
bring the blind
by a way that they knew not;
I will lead them in paths
that they have not known:
I will make darkness
light before them,
and crooked things straight.
These things will I do unto them,
and not forsake them..."
- Isaiah
"My salvation
draweth nigh..." to be offered the
promise of
mercy,
forgiveness,
no condemnation...
who am I...
that my God has
made this
promise
to me?
I will tell
you who you
are in
My eyes...
you are My child,
My beloved,
My adored and
delighted in...
you are all the gifts
of life,
and joy, and purpose that
I have
washed up onto the sea of
promise...
you are the brightness of
My rising,
the
first glimmer of pink light along
the eastern horizon,
the dancing spark
of wonder in
a child's eyes...
you are ten thousand
rings radiating through
an ancient sequoia
each leaf that turns towards the
sun,
roots that plumb the depths of
the earth,
the song of a
lark
who sings a song
without words
and never
stops at all...
you are the shimmer of
light on a wind-rippled pond,
the taste of strawberries in June,
the curl of chimney smoke on a crisp
November
night,
the scent of
apples,
a mother's fingers,
a child's
sigh...
you are
an awakening,
the first moment of knowing,
ripened fruit upon the
vine,
a benediction
a prayer... "there is
therefore,
now,
no condemnation
to them..."
"Love, never loses sight of loveliness..." - Mary Baker Eddy he reminds me from his place above my head and behind me at the mirror really? never? no, never he says with conviction... but, I wonder aloud not even when my smile fades... and the softness of my words have become sharp with anxious fear...
no, he says... not even then. but, what about when I forget to remember that we were once young, and in love won't the dog days of too many bills, and too little patience, have dimmed the brightness of my place in your heart's constellation... no, not even then, he says. but, I will grow crinkled with time and my softer places may grow softer still, things could droop or spot or fade to a colorless shade of something not like the me you fell in love with... so... and i wait so what, he says
and then I know I really know he means it the way his Father means it everytime I go to Him in prayer... I know that the love I feel is already mine... this love I learned to trust as real, the first time I looked into each of my daughters' faces... was mine too a gift of grace... unearned, unsought, unbidden it comes without pursuit,
it springs from places silent and sure...
"really..." I ask, really he says and I believe him but to feel it to really feel it, shining on the shadow spattered landscape of my human-ness, to feel it radiating, reaching, penetrating the dim primeval places of doubt and uncertainty...
lighting my life with loveliness well, it surprised me, and, still takes my breath away.... I feel like an angel
something holy and sacred in his sight... "...its halo rests upon its object..." - ibid.
