Awakened

Do not neglect your gift, which was given you through a prophetic message when the body of elders laid their hands on you.

-1Timothy 4:14

            We are all meant to be.

            Someone.

            Something.

            A flash of light through thick, syrupy darkness.

            We have been fastened together by dreams and shapes and symphonies, formed in the secret spaces of the deep. Intentionally. With fervor.

We are silhouettes made of stardust, given faces and smiles sewn on our porcelain skin. In the moon-speckled night, our deepest longings were whispered delicately into our ear. While we slept, we soared.

And then, slowly, with sensation sweeping from our eyelids, we awoke. To colors drying and chipping from the sky. With our faces, our lineage, our stories, muffled against the exhaust of nameless fumes, toxic and telling us to move along. They invaded our invincibility, our homes that hooked us to our cotton clouds and pulled the string. We slipped and stumbled to the ground, no longer aware of the way we floated. Instead, the sharp realization of reality jabbed us in the jaw, and then we knew how much the fall would hurt once our brittle bones hit the earth.  Huddled around us, voices hissed, full of doubt and fear and cruelty. The voices grappled for the shine in our eyes, tender from the blistering light that led us for so long. They took the glow and hid them in shadows, where we could only hear the faintest whimpers as they wailed at our separation.

We were tried and tested, bruised but never fully bleeding. This new world sneered at the likes of us, the dreamers who had dared to believe we were made for more. So they kept us cowering, crossed up in lies that we don’t deserve delight. That we cannot claim a life of our own.

Yet.

A seed, small, insignificant to the outside eye, has been planted.

Many years ago.

Many miles from this world.

And it has grown, quietly, in the concrete corners of our heart.

There is something inside of us that cannot stay hidden, cannot stay sleeping. It is dangerous, it is explosive, it is the greatest instrument we can possess. And with it comes the living rush of wind that sets our sails to travel the sky. To once and for all search the sands and find the perfect space to insert our own shell, unique and exquisite in a sunrise’s surprise.

This is the time.

We are formed from the hands of mercy, of beauty, of light and love. These hands that formed the heavens, formed us. And within our private precincts, they placed a voice, a vision, a task entirely our own and utterly under our command.

We are to set fire to the fabric of our beings. We are to answer this call abundantly and unabashedly. And we are to savor each second the sunlight sweeps over our face.

Because in our breath, we taste our Creator. In our skills, we see our Mentor. And in our depth and width and luster of this fading world’s wonder, we see Him who lifted us from the cradle of conformity and set us high upon the hill of hope, His light bathing us in such a glory all who look upon us burst forth in choruses of admiration.

            How they shine, their reactions echo. How they radiate with the touch of His approval.

            All other voices are silenced.

Prayer:

Lord, I am meant to be more than I am making of myself. I have talents, I have gifts, I have abilities and determination that You have put inside me. I have roles that only I can fill, and to let them sit and fade each day is wasting what You have given me. Allow me to recognize You want to use me, want me to bring You glory in every tiny and tremendous way I can. Let Your light shine, let Your hand guide me. Thank You for allowing me to be more, for Your intricate and beautiful purposes. Amen.