I Need Words As Wide As Sky

I don't really care to know how idiotic I looked jumping on the trampoline all by myself this morning at precisely 7 a.m.

I just hope to remember for a while the joy that led to the jumping.

I just pulled an all-nighter to finish my senior thesis. I might not ever go to sleep because I keep looking around, marveling that I've made it to this moment after pushing for so long and it's quiet. Such peace after such toil. 

It isn't all still. The puppies bustle and chase. They're so irreverent.

The final thesis is finished. I should revise it one last time. I'm waiting for my professor to answer an e-mail, though, so I have time to kill... to live?

There's something in me looking for the next assignment. But this time there isn't one. It is a pretty surreal place to be. And I'm loving the change of pace, not just rushing to the next task.

Which of course has me thinking.

I want to live like a woman who knows she isn't assured the next assignment. Not just an academic assignment. I'm talking about the way a woman is forced to live in the face of a terminal diagnosis. Those women ill concerned with things like schedules to make or appearances to keep. The still ones. The kind clinging to God instead of chasing life. Because sparrows don't grocery shop and flowers don't concern themselves with fashion trends. Because as life begins to evade you, I suppose you start seeing it for the wind, the vapor that it truly is.

I know that sounds depressing. But I don't want the type of moment I'm experiencing academically to shock me when it comes to my life at stake. Our "assignments" are limited. That abstract idea somehow manages to catch people off guard when it crosses the fine line into present personal reality.

You know what I feel like should catch me off guard? The sunrise. It's beautiful and miraculous. But I miss it. I don't let it catch my attention or stir my awe.

I don't have to wait for a diagnosis to walk out the front door with a blanket and humility enough to know that I don't deserve this day. And yet grace and beauty surround me. 

Yes, in the sunrise. In the jumping. In the game of puppy chase. But those, yes even sunrise, are circumstance. And I am not forever entitled to sit as audience to them. They point to something else. Something more.

There is something better than expanse filling with all the light of day from seemingly nowhere?

He came into the world and brought the more.

Something more than law. Something more than routine. Something more than sunlit sky. He brought the life. And took the death.

So the dying lost the victory. And the life gained abundance.

But maybe abundant life doesn't mean more sunsets. Maybe it means contentment with this one. Maybe abundance doesn't mean increasing the wealth as so much it means sharing it. Maybe it doesn't mean chasing a future of dreams, but rather living a present of promises.

The sun didn't rise this morning to tell me God will be faithful tomorrow.

Jesus didn't come to Earth to tell me God will just fulfill his promises in the future.

His coming was the fulfillment. Today's sun was for today.

And tomorrow's will be for tomorrow.

I was reading a part of Acts yesterday that got me to thinking this morning. Saul's walking along the road at Damascus when the bright light flashes and he's blinded. He falls to the ground (because I'm beginning to figure that's just always going to be the posture of the person poised to hear from God) and then asks, "who are you, Lord?"

Paul's conversion moment was more than a sunrise-- this much I can reason. But I found myself in a similar position this morning. I see the light coming up and I know who's doing it and I believe he's got a plan and I don't question his existence or even his relevance.

But I want to know who He is. "I know it's you Lord, but who are you?" And how do I become more like that?

Joshua, ready for battle, asks the commander of the LORDs army his plan of action. He's all ready, or so he thinks, to go all in. But the commander said to him-- as the Lord spoke to Moses in the years prior-- "take off your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy."

So Joshua did.

There is much ahead for Joshua to do. But at that moment, showing reverence to present holy was more important than anticipating accomplishment. Or accolades.

As graduation looms ever nearer, I'm so thankful for this moment. And at Easter, most thankful for the present holy.

I need words

As wide as sky

I need language wide as

This longing inside

And I need a voice

Bigger than mine

And I need a song to sing you

That I've yet to find