a limiting thing

"We do not understand what this means, to see."

"Well, it's what things look like," Meg said helplessly.

"We do not know what things look like, as you say," the beast said.
"We know what things are like. It must be a very limiting thing, this seeing."




"We look not at the things which are what you would call seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal. But the things which are not seen are eternal."

miss alice

..."Or you can call me Miss Alice-in-Wonderland," this slightly stout, middle-aged black woman chuckled next to me. We hardly knew each other, both of us of different cultures, different backgrounds, different skin coloring.

Sitting there in the sweltering sun that only Florida can provide so effortlessly, we small-talked. After running out of mindless, meaningless things to discuss, she glanced at my tattooed foot asking me to quote the verse written there. I quickly regurgitated back to her Psalm 22:5, "In Him they trusted and were not disappointed, " that had ministered to me so much in times of uncertainty.

Her response was, "Mmmm.."

Like she was soaking each word in and chewing on it for a moment.
And after she'd saturated every bit of goodness from those words of truth that I'd spoken so loosely, her eyes looked past me, and she quoted some of the most beautiful words I've ever heard:


"I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The LORD is thy keeper: the LORD is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. The LORD shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul. The LORD shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore."

It wasn't the way they were spoken: mumbled and quick, sometimes slurred. But suddenly I trusted, Alice. I believed those words more than if a pastor had quoted them from a pulpit. She lived them.

And after that I was certain we weren't different at all.

it's coming

So much in me is brewing...

I'll fill these pages soon.

rain

I love thunderstorms. As I write this, I'm sitting outside waiting for one to approach.

With thunderstorms comes the memory of my dad and me sitting in our old garage for hours, watching the rain beat on the pavement. We'd sit there and count the seconds between lightning strikes and the soon to follow thunder. And maybe we'd make a few jokes here and there about God bowling in heaven again. We'd talk about our days, and I'd listen to his musings about the future and "adulthood."

Some people say that young people don't take advantage of their youth, or that they forget to value the simple moments. But I think even then, at my young age, I knew the worth of these moments. And I held on to them tightly...

So that ten years later, when I'm stressed about the future and anxious about where my life could take me, I can think about dad and me: relaxing, contemplating and dreaming. And that beautiful rain hitting our tree-tops.

We always made it a big deal, our escapades in the garage, but really it was just our excuse to hang-out together.

I think the Lord knew I needed that reminder of the kind of peace and blessing I felt from Him in those times, so I could cling to it again now.

reminiscing

Today I am missing these gentlemen...




And this place..

and this run...


and sleeping in this house...
even on those occasions when my body woke me up at three in the morning demanding that i walk creepily into the pitch-black night from my basement cellar room to the upstairs bathroom, all-along praying no crazy British late-night "pubbers" were out...

i even miss that.

nausea

There are days when I assume no one will ever get me again. By "get" I mean, understand. By "understand" I mean take the time to discover more.

I've given it thought.

Yes, I too have spent time staring at the pictures containing love-struck faces with matching looks of endearment to go with their perfectly placed interlocking fingers. And it makes me feel a bit nauseous. And it's not nausea surfacing from the giant hearts dancing along the added border of the already unmistakable photo. I'm disgusted at the idea of that happening to "those people" but all along praying that I'm next.

But when the time comes, and I'm standing there with mixed emotions, displaying a perfect medley of both tears and smile, waiting for the moment when we say that that which was once our own is now shared...

I know that he'll "get" me.


(But in the meantime, I have people like Becky Renko to get me through. :D)

for me

Forgive me Lord, that at times I must remind my soul of Your sacrifice.

For me.

For Al.