Morning Star

And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.
-1 Peter 1:19


I have lain, face down, in a gutter filling with rainwater. Heavy droplets have seeped into my skin, spreading poisoned thoughts through me. A cold, suffocating blanket of hopelessness burrows around my body. I raise my head to keep above the rising ruins of my life. I can be strong. I can hang on to this tiny, echoing voice in my head that tells me, with each painful gasp of air, that this is not all there is.

But the water, pouring in straight from the Arctic, it seems, steadily rises, mocking me. “Look at you,” it sneers, “buried in regret and covered in catastrophe. Who do you think you are? Who do you think you will become? Trash you always have been and trash you will be.”

I slide deeper into this pool of panic, a pit of quicksand that pulls me down, heavy and with purpose. I am drained; there is no more fight within me.

Then a star appears. Set in the inky sky, lightly it sparkles in its place. It looks fragile, shimmering so sweetly above me. A crystal compass, it guides me to another star, then another, until a glowing world winks at me beyond my head, and I am helpless to do anything else but raise my eyes to the heavens and watch them turn fireworks in the night. I am beginning to dry. The rain is receding and water slowly drains from my ditch.

Still there is one more star I have just noticed. Bigger than the others, blindingly bright. It covers the entire sky with its white-hot blaze, streaking through the atmosphere and penetrating my skin. A searing pain shoots through me, but it isn’t hurtful. Almost like a refiner’s fire, chipping away at the broken pieces. The weight that held me down for so long snaps from my heart. A lightness I’ve never felt falls in its place, like I’m living on air. The sky still spills light, a vibrant, beautiful chandelier. I breathe it into my veins.

Now the gutter is barren. No mire, no sludge, no suffocating water seeping into my bones. I am clean, washed in this newly rinsed righteousness. With my heart pounding within and the cosmos in my eyes, I rise. I stand on two feet, held up by hope.

Dawn arrives in a pretty pastel greeting. I blink, unable to believe I lasted through the night. As the stars return to their beds hidden in the blanket of day, I watch the last one continue to linger and realize I was guided by the gleaming Morning Star.


Prayer:
Father, thank You for lifting me out of the pit, for changing my filth and depleting self-confidence into beauty and worth. Thank You for guiding me, my beautiful Morning Star. Amen.