My
soul yearns for You in the night; in the morning my spirit longs for You.
-Isaiah
26:9
What
does your soul long for?
What do the inner spaces of your
heart burn for? What strikes the match and sets your passion aflame?
In the most sensitive chambers, your
most tender pieces, what is it you really and truly yearn for?
Surface. You keep it all above the
surface, bobbing in the abyss and hollowing up your heart with a soft smile and
simple greeting that tells the world you’re fine, that you’re simply floating
through this life.
But that’s not what you’re meant
for. You know it, in the terrible tremors that rattle your ribcage and keep you
up at night, breath heaving, head spinning. Reach your fingers beneath the
waters and delve into the inner workings of your hidden secrets, the closed
doors that dare not come unlocked. Turn over the tables, smash the lamps and
watch them shatter across the floor. Let out the lion that prowls within. Open
up, admit to yourself that what you seek is more than surface words and clever
conversation.
There is something you crave. In the
caverns of your chest, it pulses, murmurs, reaches out with ready hands. You
cannot keep control if you’re meant to lose your life.
So what is it you can’t keep washed
down? What is it that fills your eyes with purpose, that lingers on your lips
with sugared satisfaction? What is it that keeps you up in those marble
midnight hours, trembling and flapping its wings, daring itself to unclasp the
hinge of its cage?
Purple hearted, bleeding beauty that
penetrates your armored skin. There it lies, ready and willing to fight with you.
To launch your cause and blow this world into another orbit souls have never
seen.
Go into that sacred space. Train
your eyes to the darkness and feel around until you find its wriggling form,
eager to be unleashed.
What is it your soul longs for?
Prayer:
Father,
my heart bleeds. Even when I don’t want to admit it, can’t find the way into
those sacred chambers. But You have instilled these longings within me, these
passions I can’t shake. Please help me know what to do with them, to admit to
wanting more and steady my breath to linger under the surface. Take my heart
and turn it to Yours. Amen.
