Holding Something

And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us.
-Romans 5:5



I am holding something in my heart.

A feeling. It is unidentifiable. It is deep. Buried, covered in earth hundreds of miles beneath my surface.

Sometimes I can feel it breathing. Feel its slight rise and fall as it inhales my life and exhales Yours. Like each space between the silence is filtered from me, from my selfish, sinful flesh, and squeezed through a needle of new awakening, to be filled with Your soul, Your desire.

Faint is the song lifting in the breeze. A soft echo, sweeping the sky inside me, drawing out the day. From black to blue, a powdered perfection infiltrating my existence. I am drawn to the light. I am reaching for that shooting star.

I protect myself to feel no pain. I see what I want, say what I need. I am foolish when I play my words back to me. And when I slow down the sentences, You are the white noise speaking in symbols to my soul. Your voice, its softness, its certainty, strikes me and hooks to my heart, and there it hangs, swaying gracefully above the gaps of life. Never wavering, never losing its grip.

Can I touch it, just this once? Can I reach my trembling hand inside my very being, the raw pounding of my chest, and brush my fingertips across the pumping presence of Your wonder? If I let myself in, break through to that practically unperceivable hope holding me together, where will it take me? Where do I want it to go? Where do You want it to go?

All I am is shape and silence. I am the snow forming in winter’s midnight. You are the ground to which I fall. In between the blankets of belief, You whisper in my head, trail Your design down my spine and slip into my soul. I never knew I could shiver with such restrain. You coax me, gently, imploringly, to lose myself in this feeling. This feeling of all things good. Because to know this greatness, this burst of unimaginable imagination, is to know You. To know that You take a stone and shape it into starlight. To know Your eyes see the color of my core and weave a rainbow in my being. From this serpent, You create a seraphim.

I have wings. They shine. They lift my heart into my hands and dance me to Your music. I am sorting out this freedom You have untied within me. I am taking hold of this feeling, transparent in my veins. Guiding me to a blushing horizon, encouraging me to dream. Dream in me, dream in You. Dream in all things bright.

My heart is beating. It is begging to unfold from the gray reign I’ve kept it subject to. Take it. Release it to the ribbon-sewn sweetness of Your promise, which longs to give me abundantly more than my hopeful heart has ever conceived.



Prayer:
Dear One, I have been sleeping for too long. I have been afraid to hope for anything good, anything beautiful. But to doubt its existence is to doubt You, for You are all things beautiful and good. I am going to dare to dream, I am going to set my heart out on a limb. Because I trust that You have me protected, You have me by Your side, and that You want to exceed anything I’ve experienced. You are joy. You are a gift. You long to gift me with Your presence. Fill me up, Lord. Let me see You in every great gust of wind You sweep across my face. Let me feel Your goodness, feel Your wonder. Amen.