The Hard Running Road

Sometimes there is so much life happening in the living that you can't stop long enough to draw your breath.  You can't stop to feel it all so you keep right on running; keep lacing your feet in tight; keep thinking the light thoughts so your feet can fly.

"God, make me light.  Make me like air so that I won't feel the pounding of my feet or my heart hammering pain and all the hurting lives held in my swirling mind."

Run.  Run away.  Run until you get to the still place where all falls silent and you feel as if you could fly.  You hear your breath coming hard and fast, and you think of him lying on his bed far away.  He said that he's only shed one tear.  You picture him as you watch your face in the reflection of the t.v. screen at the top of the tread mill, and you see his eyes in yours.  Your feet fly, and your heart flies these running thoughts of him that become prayers folding him into your arms again.  Making him small again.  Making him your little boy again.

You run and pray and breathe because...

Only God can help you hold on and let go at the same time.  

Bernadette

 

James 5:16-17

We circle our chairs in close.  The falling-apart chairs in my living room holding these falling-apart lives. We cling together like leaves on a wire.  Our conversation, a confession.  Our prayers, healing.   So that we might live righteous.

Re and T.  Precious girlfriends who hold my feet fast to the fire.

Teach me how to live,

Bernadette

When All Is Quiet

When it's all quiet.
I slip my hand in Yours.
Sit silent and let You hold all my heart
while I whisper Your Name.

Jesus.
My Jesus.

When it's all finally quiet,
I open the Psalms.
Read Your love letters,
And whisper Your Name.

Jesus.
Sweet Jesus.

When it's all quiet,
I lay my head right down on Your heart.
Let tears fall straight down,
and whisper Your Name.

Jesus.
Oh, Jesus.

When You help me get quiet,
I can hear Your voice.
Instructing me to be still
while You whisper my name.

Child.
My Child.

When I am quiet, Lord,
I draw near, and You are nearer still.
Still.
Whispering Your Name.

Jesus.
My Jesus.

When all is quiet,

Bernadette

THE TRUSTEE

It's out before I can stop it.  Words that should never have been spoken in that setting...words ill timed and tumbling out like a string of bad pearls that I couldn't pull back.  Wretched tongue! 

Her father died.  He left a note.

And I?  I asked her if she would be my trustee.

Can you imagine?

I asked her,  "If I should go and they not know, would you make sure that each one of the children knows that I loved them?  That I was broken, but that I loved them?  Would you make them understand somehow?  Can I trust you to accomplish this for me?"

How can I forget her face?

Who will be her father's trustee, and how can we give what wasn't given to us?

I lose my life in the simple beauty of her response.

"Yes."

We sit silent and lost, yet finding this new and crazy way of doing things together.  Groping our way out of the darkness and into the light.

Hand in hand,

Bernadette

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There is nothing new under the sun.  Ecclesiastes 1:9