I wrote this a while ago, but it sort of seems to fit with where I am now too. Slightly more hopeful than yesterday. Almost. Sometimes you’ve just got to write it out, don’t you?
It’s been a long few months. I paused and remembered the day I finally stopped running from my pursuers and felt my heart shift into a new and uncertain key I could not dance to. I lay down, exhausted and covered with the dirt from the road, and waited for the one I had come to call friend. I waited for death. I lay there in the dust of the day, broken down, weary and alone, with no strength in my arms to push up, or song in my soul to push on through. At last, I’d burnt out. There was nothing else to do or say. I was finished.
Why are you so downcast, Oh my soul? Why so afraid? Why so fearful?
The voices around me chided me to get back on my horse, but it is not there. My horse is not there and all I can see is miles of road fading to sky. How can I keep going without my horse? How can I keep going without those things I have learned to put my weight on? I lay there, face-down, tired of the journey and tired of living. Each solitary heartbeat seemed to mock and jeer- I am still here. I am still here. I was cold and motionless, bleeding out of so many wounds I could not count them. See, I am one with the road. I covered my eyes and shook out tangled hair and waited, wished for death, who seemed so powerful, so elusive. He did not come. For the longest time, I stayed in limbo. Death let me down and I could not chase him.
When the lights came down and all lay still, I listened to the smallest voice in my heart that before that moment I’d been able to ignore. I listened to my soul weeping for the one I missed more than anything, the one I could call Home.
“Big brother, protector, counsellor, where are you? Where are you, most trusted friend? Where are you, my rescuer? I strain ears and eyes but cannot hear you, cannot see you. You cast no shadow here. The wind does not carry your call. Yet, here I am, I am here. I need you. I need, you.”
Need – such a small word, such a great meaning, my heart said. Again, I spoke –
“I need, I need you to stand between me and these forces bent on my destruction. I need you to hide me under your cloak and shield me from the storm. I need you to bind up my wounds and salve my cuts, to wash the grit from my eyes, and over your shoulder, your steady shoulder, carry me home.”
No-one came. No-one came for the longest time. The sky grew darker. Now, it grows darker. I waited.
“Where are you, saviour? Where are you, redeemer? Am I so undeserving that you leave me to die? Am I so distasteful to you, so stained in iniquity, that my destruction would please you, would satisfy you? Am I so unimportant, so floundering in faith and so unsure of footing, that you would turn your back and leave me here forever, calling your name, aching for your gaze to find mine?”
“You are my redeemer, my fighter, my knight in armour. You are my leading light. You are my hero, my shepherd, my strongest friend. I do not deserve you, that much I know. I do not deserve you at all. But – I need you, you, Jesus, now. Always. More than ever and more than before and more than in future. I need you. Please come. Please be listening.”
Wait. Bleed. Wait. Hope. Wait. Amen.
Learning to be still 