There is so much beauty in all the world, and her skin looks like the fresh cream that used to foam in the milk bucket when I was young. I drink her up with my eyes, and she doesn't look away. I think she's the bravest woman in the world as I laugh at myself. Serious girl. Seriously trying to dig out of the shame grave. Why not plant life? Why not make beauty from all these...ashes?
She never wavers, but pours the water and holds my hands as they go deep into new ground. We get a bit muddy together. Another brave girl because she doesn't shy away from pain. Just holds me in it, holds me good and tight, and we push back the walls of darkness and let life come in. We let her live there with us, and it is good. Life. To live all the way. Alive.
Life in the gathering of Believers in our living room to sing praise to a baby king who came to die. Prayers cast high and held close in the tender circle of family and friends. Luminous hearts and dozens of luminaries casting a light that glows long after everyone has gone home. Light deep and wide.
Life in my hands clasped to the pale fingers of my beloved sister. In knowing that her pain level is a seven, and that I am the seventh of nine children. The one child held specially in her love, and memories flood my eyes and mind. How the weaving of fingers never stops, and how her heart is welded to mine. Just that we love even so. Deeply.
Life in the agony of watching your children suffer, if only because it drives you to your bare knees. Because your heart hurts so much you can't breathe with out Christ, and because that is good. The holy road is hard and fraught with peril, but it is still the good road. The God road.
Life in the laughter here, and the healing in my back. Life in rising early with my Shoulders and knowing him again as my own. Drinking deeply from the well of his love. Life in getting well and good and whole. Exchanging grave for brave.
Resting in a Father Who never does because His eye is on the sparrow...see?
On you and me,
Bernadette
No comments:
Post a Comment