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The Things We Leave Behind...

    On my recent adventure to the Oregon coast I had an opportunity to go to Crater Lake; an ancient lake settled in southern Oregon that is approximately 2,000 feet deep. This immense lake was created from a volcano eruption thousands of years ago that was so powerful that it imploded in on itself and created a huge void that was to be slowly filled only with rain and snow and finally reach the present day depth. There are no inlets to the lake rather it only dispels its water through a few small outlets, maintaining an astonishing clear and pure water source. The color is such a fantastic blue that there is no escaping it's piercing draw. In fact I found that the water was so blue it seemed fake, hardly believable from the normal blue I have seen in many other lakes. I found myself looking at it so much that I almost fell out of the boat...or was I being pulled in? In fact it is because the lake is so deep that it can reflect the color blue that it does when the sky is blue and the sun shines. Beauty, true beauty has that effect on me and often I never know where it is going to come from.

    This volcano lake, like many of our lives, have this type of a crisis moment. It could be moving on from an unhealthy relationship, a career shift out of a dead end job, or choosing to draw closer to God...Love's Eternal Flame. We all have times of expelling things from us in the search for the truth of who we are but often we have no way of telling what will fill the void. What I find very interesting are the many things we leave behind us, like a wake of sediment that flows out and away from us as a tidal wave of destruction and new beginnings...a desire for blue. What we leave behind says much about the beauty and strength to come. Had the volcano only had a small eruption the depth of the true blue beauty  and magnitude would have been limited to the likes of a small lake,pond, or puddle...a small effect. In a sense the volcano emptied itself of all it knew for the unknown...much like the journey of our own spiritual formation.

    There is also such a strong sense of loss and void left by the eruption, that sometimes we wish we had those same things back in our lives...sort of like sentiment for sediment. It is here we must abandon control and we must become the one who opens...opens wide for the Creator of life to pour forth into the crater of loss, sadness, and confusion. When the heavens pour themselves into us it may feel very unpleasant at first because we have not known this life for so very long. In fact it could be very unclear, appearing as dirty water as it mixes with all the leftover familiar ground. We must continue to receive and not be so concerned about the appearance now, because true formation takes time. There will be times when God pulls back the veil for a little while to let you see what you are becoming; a deeper truest you reflecting the heavens blue. 

It took thousands of years to create a beauty this strong...ours will not be much different. A friend of mine recently reminded me that if we focus on the past we can become resentful & bitter, on the future we become overwhelmed & drown. If we simply receive the present and we become more and more ourselves...thousands of feet deep with fresh water able to reflect from our deep crater. God desires to lavishly pour himself into us but often we are not able to hold the water because we leak. The funny thing is that he knows that already so he just pours more into His creation for our deeper formation. Kinda makes you want to dive deep into that coolness of God doesn't it!

Poem: In Fractured Light I Fly

In Fractured Light I Fly

In fractured light I fly when clouds round heavy back and weighted side.

Cool winds crash into steaming sand along the desert floor quickly ripping tight a blanket of teardrops come once...and millions to follow. Tell deep stories they do, with infant sitting riverside where rushing waters cool abide. Block the sun burning stare, shield not light but empty its storehouse to craked and water dry lips. Drifting wafts of colored cottonfields move inside my heart and then outside my mind. Mercies fracture light makes new all these places pushing me away from all good desire. Thunder shakes the day with the hounds of waring light to waken the eagle nest from deep sleep to fly to lofty high places. Blue is my color bleeding outside my pours. My eyes want more than what they are pouring for. Hear my heavy arms now swirling, pulsing, fast they thrive. My feet are far from ground, they keep me smiling. Fear and wind move my hair over dry desert hollow grounds. 

In fractured light I fly when cloud round heavy back and weighted side.

 

 

Green Lanterns

Green abounds in my heart for the first time in years. You see most of my posts this past year have been about things I feel and think about, things that make my heart heavy and light, and the whisperings of God's grace that flows to everyone around me...even me. I have been searching for moments that take my day away along with my breath...again and again. Do you know what I am talking about? Let me turn the page in your mind, maybe the one you have not yet written. These hidden pages are the goodness that songs are echoing, books labor to birth, and movie curtains strive to reveal. Sometimes words say so much. Sometimes they don't say enough. Sometimes we need a vision fromgreen lanterns.

I am slowly driving on a small paved highway weaving in and out, up and down a mountain countryside. The rain has been pouring from the sky in my heart and above like great swell unable to utter a single understandable phrase. I notice a shift in my spirit as the last of the large drops strike my windshield and travel down onto the road that is moving beneath. I watch the backside of the battle cloud storm that left a fresh wake of water from heaven filling all the small pours in the landscape releasing smells of earth and green and light filling the senses with nostalgia...and again I am 7 years old...a little young to be driving. The trees and grass glisten diamonds from a wealthy farmer throwing his seeds about in a wanton and careless fashion...promise of a great harvest. The sun is caught by an emerald sage brush and it gives it back to the world as if to thank the streaming clouds of night for its streaming bounty. The earth sand is darker now moving from latte tan to espresso brown and the rocks carve out images of their ancient days highlighted by orange and lime splashes. Wildflowers playfully and extravagantly accent the round edges of the ground like beauty pouring from a naked woman that is beyond my senses to absorb.The setting sun begins its descend behind some distant epic passes of peaks and valleys accented like a silhouette by orange, yellow and pink stratus clouds on a backdrop of cerulean blue leaving a soft hue to all life around me. I am taken in.

I stop the car because my spirit has stopped running. I open the door and feel the wind wisp gracefully and carefully against my forehead filling my ears with a haunting voice of quiet beckoning me to be still. All is calm inside my driven heart and it beats to a rhythm of a slow dance between two lovers unabashedly intertwined. I am glad that I brought my young heart to this beauty...or did it call me here on it's own. Be still and know. The wisdom of these words echo deep in my heart, filling my mind with clarity and tranquility. Tears pour down my face from the battle cloud storm in my mind drenching the crevasses in my mouth and I cannot speak more than a few words..."THank you!"

For is there any other words we can speak that the Father wants to hear? To be still and know that He is our true Father is to stop the car and say thank you. The glory of God is man fully alive in the beauty of accepted tenderness. TO keep driving is to miss everything that matters...and most of the time it is only thing we know how to do. As I sleep tonight some remnants of the day that I have been given will remain in my heart and some will leave. My prayer for tomorrow is for more green lanterns. My hope is that they will bring me back to Father, to this place He has saved for me at the end of the day...a place for He and I. He shares this out of his never ending palate of love and paints a new creation from the battle clouds of night. He whispers..."Behold I make all things new!"

Another Go

"The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little above the level of farce, and it gives it some of the grace of tragedy..."

                                                -Steven Weinberg

Have you ever wanted "another go" (Australian for "do over")? Maybe it was a moment, a day, maybe a week...how about a year? THe real truth is that I long for do overs. When what I wanted did not happen the way it was meant to, I was careless in word and deed, or things just got weird and flew off in many directions. Sometimes I wish I could pause the day and drink the beauty of a sunset a little longer, take in deeper a great conversation, or see someone in their glory with great clarity who is often overlooked and marginalized.

I am in the middle of a sort of "hockey style" mid life crisis...the ending of the first period. I think I have at least 2 more to go and I am not sure what the score is. I am in the locker room planning, licking my wounds, and drying off the sweat from a well fought battle...so far. Most people say the effect of a mid life crisis is generally the desire for a "Do Over". For men this usually ends badly... even desperate as the to redeem all those lost years result in buying a flashy corvette, the wearing of tighter fitting clothes, more bling, shedding a few pounds, and winning over a younger beautiful woman to parade on theirarm. The construction of a massive fig leaf.

I had a basketball coach in high school tell me over and over in practice,"Life gives you one chance and if you blow it you will never get another one." Whoa! What a crazy thing to say. THe sad thing is that somewhere in my heart I believed him. Basketball to him was life and whenever the team would loose he would smash lockers, clipboards, and anything he could get his hands on. One game he put me at point guard, which I did not like. I had a few turnovers and he pulled me out of the game and benched me the rest of the game. Those words echoed in my cranium. In the locker room he proceeded to take it out on me, saying that there are some people that are born to be basketball players and some that are not...he just could not teach me anything. I was 17 sitting on the bench.

Most of this desire for a "Do Over" comes from a young place, a fatherless place. What I needed was perspective and not perfection. I needed to know something really important- that mistakes are a necessary part of learning, apart of the landscape of a moment, a day, a week, and a year. That we are created out of the pleasure of the Trinity, formed in all our "imperfections" and we all get to play when grace is around. We are not meant to watch life go by from hard wooden benches of dismissal, despair, and shame. We are meant to SHINE!

I want my story to be different in this next period but I often find this young place rise up in me wondering if I really do have what it takes for the next period. The echoes of self-hatred and doubt creep in at just the worst possible time. There is battle, a deep lament for things done and left undone...but I cannot open the door to the lies of my enemy. My Father is pushing me off the bench, calling me into the eternal expanding fields of His good and growing Kingdom and my heart fills with tears of hope...really???....me??? I get a bunch of "Do Over's!!!!" I want to love deeper, hope greater, live free, and battle for the freedom of many hearts. I want to see the Kingdom of God expanded in desolate places, comfort and shelter the un-fathered children, and help me believe in love again. The cry of my heart is "Father me! I am an unfinished man!"

 

Alone In The Middle Of The Room

I want to talk about what we are all afraid to talk about. Being alone.

Do you see what I see? It is everywhere, this deafening roar from the jaws of creeping dragons that pull you into one very lonely corner. I block it out with movement. You know...move to the next room and grab a snack (healthy snack hopefully) and turn on the TV and watch 24 play out in suspended tones...until next week. What's next...I might then move to something else...checking email and hopping around face-book, a collage of all the wonderful lonely people I know (and many of them I love) on any given night trying to stay connected before returning to it. I do not want to linger there for very long. Sometimes I can cut it with a knife.

Don't be ashamed...don't hate yourself...you are lonely. It is the stench of this cold world making its way to your nostrils. There is no crime in being lonely, no social police that will call your bluff with a ticket to free will fancy pants paradise. Why are you so sad and even angry at me for bringing this up? We create churches and groups, schools and classrooms, events and non-events, clubs, cliques, and cliche community pet projects. It all feels like some desperate attempt to grab on to something for a few moments and maybe microbial seconds...and then lets do it all over again the next week. If it feels good do it...right? Do you think it will be better next time...well maybe it will...and maybe it won't. Don't get me false, I love parties but I still go home alone.

One thing I can count my lucky marbles on and rest assured...I will live and die...alone. People are all around me but they are not in my skin. If they were I would not be alone but it would be very uncomfortable and gross...like having 2 heads. Not to mention confusing. But I digress...In fact we all establish a personal space in order to maintain our handbook distance from another person. We do not mind frequent or not so frequent abrasion's and appendages to this rule but sooner or later and at the end of the day...we are alone. I just donot know why it is so hard to accept. Some people pretend they want to be "unalone" only later you find out they cannot wait until you leave...they are master posing pretenders...but theyare still alone. Then there are those who play solitaire on the computer (you know who you are) and here they are lonely and still trying to win at something...American Alonester! I will even play games not to feel alone.

The only way to never be alone is to invite someone inside of me. Next to me is still alone. Behind me and in front of me, east and west of me...still alone. One problem: even the most perfect union between 2 people ends sometime and then you find yourself...well...alone after all. What will I do then? When my head hits the pillow and I am breathing in the silence. I wonder if I have made room for someone to live inside, to take residence with me? What about my walls and my personal space...what about my rights to my own stuff? Where does that go?

Well I guess I will have to give up something. A long and sustained loneliness is surely found 6 feet under but it never started there.

I will have to give up being alone, but how can I give up something that is mine and mine alone?

Solitude and Isolation can never share the same room. I put the kettle on and wait.

"Happy being lonely, lonely being happy."

            -Bill Malonee, Vigilantes of Love

Ed The Dancing Statue Of Liberty

"Live as brave men; and if fortune is adverse, front its blows

with brave hearts." 
                            Cicero (106 BC- 43 BC)

It is tax season...have you seen him? I am sure you have. Ed The Dancing Statue of Liberty. He is a rare find, a breed built for disseminating all known stereotypes for mascots and magicians alike. He sheds all garments but the light teal blue jumper cape and crown of many pointers, gathers his advertisement sign for the public to see, and braves the cruel world. A world of cars that would probably run him over if he fell into the road, angry small people honking at him not with him, and the elements are completely unforgiving, blowing cold wind past his shaking hairy legs.

On and on he goes powered by his itunes, a 6 shot mega mocha, and the small hope that he is what everyone fears...a dancing statue of liberty. You know you're afraid...it's a frikin' dancing statue of liberty! He has been an upgrade from the blow-up statue that had been perched on the building a few weeks ago as that statue lost air and looked like it was giving the world a "hail Hitler" with the sagging right arm. One thing is for sure...he is no Nazi...he is a dancing statue of liberty. He gives out the peace sign as if to tell the honking world that all will be well someday if they would join him in his groove. It is a fine groove with a shake here and a jive there, pointing at the passing mass of wheels and giving them the thumbs up. This guy has what it takes!

Will anyone give this guy a break? It is his job dammit! He dons that get up for minimum wage and does not complain one "iota". He stops for a few minutes, pounds a cheeseburger value meal and gets it done out there. Ok, so maybe he does not have a college degree. He has more confidence than the average bear. He is not covering his face and all his friends can see him...that has to count for something. Maybe he has a family and maybe they are proud of him...proud to call him their Daddy The Dancing Statue Of Liberty! His shoes are worn and his knees are shaking but he will not bow to the creature comforts of American idealism...like a fur coat.

I want to give him a few dollars for his hard work. Does Ed The Dancing Statue Of Liberty get invited to your house for Easter dinner? Nope. He is out there keeping the world safe and free. Free from social morays and free from the jeers of the crowd. He is the man in the arena with blood, sweat and tears on his face fighting for the disheveled and dejected freedom fighters and he doesn't give a flying F_ _ _ what you think of him as long as you give him a honk from your car he will be pleased and shake and shimmy a little more for you. He just paused for a smoke break but that is ok as long as he carries the torch a little longer, a little higher.

Go Ed Go! You are the man!!! Do your thang! You are free to dance all day long or at least until your next smoke break...personal pause button...and then your back...with a vengeance!

A World To Raise A Son

"The world exists for our education...the whole creation works for the development of the children of God into the sons and daughters of God."

                                                                                    - George MacDonald

 

Last night I went to hear Bishop John Rucyahana of from Rwanda speak at the Shove Chapel. He spoke about the genocide in Rwanda 15 years ago where the pain still weighs heavy in his country. He spoke with humility, compassion, and about the love of Christ that is able to draw his people to repentance, healing, and reconciliation. He said that there has been substantial growth in his people and their reconciliation to each other...but also described a long path to go. He spoke of a woman who had 70 out of 76 of her family members slaughtered, skinned alive, and butchered...and how she is forgiving the perpetrators...one at a time. How does forgiveness work? I started to think about how I could relate to her story, I could not. There was no capacity to take it in because it felt so big, so overwhelming. Nothing in my story that could compare with her story...nothing left in me but the mercy of Christ for myself...and my incapacity. Jesus has asked me to forgive those who have sinned against me in my past but wwould Christ ask me to forgive such a magnitude of debt someday? Maybe he will but that does not seem to be the question today. Is Christ asking me to forgive someone else now that I have had the most trouble in forgiving? As I search my heart I find someone I must forgive...strangely it is myself. I am being asked to forgive Nathan for what he has done to his own heart, not guarding it from the corruption of his own flesh. He has committed atrocities against his own heart. Wow, I never saw that coming! Jesus is teaching me what it means to to forgive...even myself. And this is just the beginning!

A 53 year old man recently told me,"I want you to show me what it is to be a man...because I believe you are a man...and you know Jesus." His world has been filled with abuse, addiction, and self-hatred. His mom tried to kill him by shoving him in an oven and his dad did nothing to stop her. This man wants me to teach him about Christ and His love and how to be a man. Stunned. I am stunned at the Christ in me that he sees in me. I am asking all sorts of questions now. What can I teach him? I have levels of brokenness in my life that are astounding to me and sometimes I wonder about that. What is my capacity, what I hold out to others do I not leak out? I have a small bucket with holes and it looks like God uses the leaks. What is this Kingdom of God and the caliber of the man that God sees fit to call into it? I forget that I am more man than boy, more son than child, more fearless than fearful and yet I hate the fact that I forget who I am. I am not self-depreciating here at all.I am simply being simplified. I am re-learning what I have to learn. I am seeing something that I have not seen before...Christ in me the hope of becoming more and more a son.

Sipping my double espresso with friends at Poor Richards last night was great...but I was disturbed. There was a young man reading the Koran next to me and the book was riddled with bookmarks and notes. I was amazed and humbled at his hunger and ambition. He was also noticeably homeless. He said nothing but glanced at our table from time to time. What was his story and did anyone care? Why did I not engage him in conversation? Was there fear? Fear of what? I did not take time to look at the his world...I was satisfied with my own answer and dismissed him as some stereotype in my own mind...I was not ready to learn. Sometimes I am shocked at my shallowness and depravity of my own flesh...it really prevents me from hearing my new heart cry out "Abba!" Then I also an reminded of God and his gentle tone with me...he will bring an opportunity for me to expand His Kingdom in me again. Next time I want to be ready...I will see the opportunity to grow...I hope.

For me, the mystery of God in me is more important than the mystery of man flesh in me. I want to know God's love for me deeper so that His love for the world of man can be known in me and through me. This Kingdom of God is not for me to understand so that I can feel good about what I know. It is for my external engagement and internal expansion. Inside it I am taught the knowledge and wisdom of the heart of the Father. He longs for me to step beyond being a child and run into becoming his son. He shows me this world as He sees it...broken and longing for a Father...the world that is part of his Kingdom...the Kingdom that he is pleased to share with me.

A village to raise a child, a world to raise a son.

 

            "We are the sons of God the moment we lift up our hearts, seeking to be sons-the moment we begin to cry Father...The world must be redeemed in a few men to begin with. It takes a long time to finish the new creation of this redemption...we groan as we wait for the son-ship."

                                                    -George MacDonald

 

More Than Words

I am not sure what to write today. This happens from time to time and I wonder about that.

Some things that are better without my words; holding, seeing another, a kiss, wind.

Some times words can work against me when what I need is to act. 

SOme people speak and their words mean nothing.

Others speak and deserts become gardens.

Others promise what they cannot.

SOme just cross their heart.

Others just hope to die.

SOme see the needle.

Others just cry.

More than...

WOrds.

love*

 

We Love Each Other...Or Die

"When we were little we needed to be held, cuddled, and loved...when did that stop?"

-Jack Lemmon, Tuesday's With Morrie

 

There was something on his face that fall afternoon day. Something needed to be said and he was the only one who could say it. The tension built in his face as he began to write out the journal of a lifetime. Regret, sadness, joy, fear, and yes...love. He spoke under the power of his own heart as his lungs had given out weeks ago. He wanted to share his life so that others could see how he loved. And then he spoke words that have haunted me since they journeyed from his heart to his lips..."we love each other...or die".

"Stop!" the hospital nurse shouted in a quiet but stern tone. "Please don't go in the room yet, the other babies will awake and then the crying will be hard to stop." I wanted to go in but I thought that it sounded like a better idea to wait...but I couldn't wait. I have been longing for this day to see my son for the first time. He was in bed #8 and I could see his tiny hand rise above the edge and move in some rhythmic motion like he was directing a choir no one could see...but I could. I could see the music. The light in the room seemed to shine on his God shaped delicate fingers and the orchestra was playing the music of a thousand decades in praise and honor of the day...his day. He was the only one I could see...he was my son and my namesake. I would cherish many days just looking at him and he at me, holding him in my arms, and rocking him to sleep with the sun setting on yet another glorious day to love. I knew that something was being passed from me to him...like manna from the sky I was the only love he knew for that moment. I wanted time to stop so I could hold him like that forever and in some rooms in my mind the loving has not stopped...how could it. The picture is set and there is nothing more or less, wanting or waiting, this was love as he knew it and all is well. My face was the only planet in his solar system and he beheld my eyes while twitching his mouth...and then a smile. Longing eyes are a light in dark places.

He was the last to come off his bus that day. He walked so slow up the hill that I thought he would never make it to the driveway. He stopped and rubbed his eyes. It had been a hard day in his life. He found out he did not make the boys basketball team even though he looked at the final cut list over and over again, hoping his name would appear. There must have been a mistake and so he would go to the coach and ask why his name was not on the paper. His answer came that there was no room on the team...only 12 jerseys. I was not there when he came into the house and this would be a common occurrence for years. I missed this...I missed him. I longed to pull him into my arms and tell him he has what it takes and that he will make the team next year. I wanted to tell him he was not abandoned and that he was loved far beyond what he could see that day. If he could just look into my eyes for a little while I would erase the dark. That day, he began looking away to other eyes that would feed his little soul with validation. As the years went on and others eyes found his faults, he believed there was something wrong with him. I could not convince him of his belovedness beyond what he could or could not do...and my eyes were rivers.

Have I ever needed love more than now? I have wondered why it is hard to look into another's eyes and not glance away in awkwardness? The strangest fears begin to take shape in my nervous little heart. Tension fills the air and the tightness ensues around my lungs until I look away into a safe space. Is there is something wrong with my eyes...or my heart...or does this river run its course from far off lands? I think that above all I do need this and yet it is the only thing I do not give room for. But if I do not have love I will die, or at least something will die in me that I want alive someday. It is that simple...and letting love in is the hardest part...even harder than letting love go. I am having to let a love go now that I thought I would never loose. Will it return again? I sometimes think there is something wrong with me to have this need so deep and wide as the grand canyon. I want to let God love me and it is harder than I thought, perhaps it is harder than it looks. When did that stop?

It is hard to ask God for the love I need. It is hard to stare at him...but he never stops looking for my eyes and for the music to start again. So I wave my little hand and stare toward that 18 inches spanning the distance from my head to his heart.

 

 

Deus Nobis...For The Rest Of Us

            "You drank up our suffering and feasted on pain..."

                       -God With Us, by Barry & Michelle Patterson - Long Straight Up Hill Climb

 

    Yesterday I hopped in the car with my brother on his way up to a mall in Denver, the only place for a special gift to his wife on their 5th wedding anniversary (way to go Bro!). Right..the day after Christmas...the day where one might think would be relaxing for people, having been satisfied from stuffing their faces with food, tearing wrapping off of bargain hunted presents, and absorbing gobs of entertainment...not for us consumer loyal Americans. The scurrying, hurrying, hustling, and bustling was in fine form and new Olympic records may have been set in "creative driving and gesturing" and "lets see how quickly I can loose my cool". When we attempted to leave the parking lot we got sucked into a vortex of immovable cars due to a poorly planned parking lot. I decided to get creative and went to each car behind us and asked them to back up (in a one way section) and head in the opposite direction of all the traffic flow so they could all get out. Everyone agreed and so I went to the beginning of our section and directed traffic to get things moving again and it worked! When the last car was out of the bottleneck a man who had to wait 60 seconds cowardly yelled out his window to me, "F_ _ _k you!!" I returned the knife with a glass of water by saying, "Have a GREAT day!" I guess the Canadians call the day after Christmas "Boxing Day" and in America I call it the same for different reasons.

    "Would you like to try our chicken?"a young girl asked the shifting crowd. She was a working for a Japanese food kiosk, a little shy and a bit homely but she was trying her best. People would grab the chicken bits and keep walking but no one looked at her. Simple kindness was as void as the bottom of the Christmas tree. I decided to try some chicken and then said "thank you" to her and smiled. She smiled back a bit. I wondered if anyone really saw her that day or just some hands holding out marinated poultry samples. I wanted to tell her that she was beautiful and loved by God and that he was with her...standing next to her in the marketplace of empty hearts and full bags. My eyes welled up as I thought about God's heart and how it aches this time of year...of how He is missed just like her.

    Jesus said that if we do something for the least among us that we do it unto him. I believe that because Christ is with everyone, the least could be someone we do not even see...and then we miss seeing him. We miss him when we forget that His kindness leads to repentance and healing. We miss Him when we glance at him and gaze at men or women. We miss him when we look for his hand but not his face. I don't want to miss him...but I am sad to report that often I do.

    I believe that because of the nature of the broken and desperate world we live in we are all overlooked, missed for who we are, and at some levelabandoned to one degree or another. The severity of the abandonment is different for every story... a loved one dies, a lover leaves, or a parent checks out at a crucial time in our lives...and it all matters if anything matters at all. The message of abandonment is often "You Are Alone". In my life this Christmas there has been nothing that has stuck with me like the words "Deus Nobis", Latin for "God with us". He is with me. I love him most for this. The Kingdom of God invades my driven, tired, and wounded world by announcing "Immanuel! He sings this to me and I am reminded as I listen to the Almighty Lover. What this means is that he is right next to me and that division and distraction keeping us from being together has been torn in half. This means being alone is not an option and the message of abandonment has no truth or power to seize my nights and footpath. He drinks up my suffering and feasts on my pain and does it all with his hand never leaving mine. What a God! What a Friend!

            When you start to doubt if you exist, God believes in you

            Confounded by the evidence, God believes in you

            When your light burns so dim and your chances seem so slim and you swear you don't bbelieve in him, God believes in you

                        "God Believes In You" by Pierce Pettis- Everything Matters