It was such a pretty evening. Cool in the shade, warm in the sun, too temperate to be summer, to early to be fall, it seems suspended between times. As I drove home with the windows down, not caring where my hair was blowing, as long as I could see, I tried to let my mind go blank, to just enjoy the moment. It's never so easy is it? When the rose colored glasses come off, there is moment when something dies and it can't ever come back to life.
Lord, where are you? In these moments, when I want time to stop so I can catch up with my life, so I can gird and be ready for battle again, when I need a moment for the world to stop spinning so I can catch my breath, where are you? I speak you out, but I hear no response besides the beating of my heart, the tick-tick-tick of my keyboard. In the death of all my fairy-tales, it would seem our happily ever after has ended as well.
And maybe it should have. As much as I have wanted others to be, more than anything I have wanted you to be my knight in shining armor. I wanted to be saved by you. Don't get me wrong, I know the theological sense I am saved, but don't hate me if for a moment I get off the Christian merry-go-round and speak to a different sense of saving. I guess the better term would be rescued. I wanted to be rescued by you. I don't even know how, or in what capacity, but I wanted you to come into the blazing battle, sword drawn, swing me onto your trusty steed and take me away to live in complete happiness forever.... whatever that means. I guess I just wanted you to make it better. Somehow, someway.
Like a little kid that feels better just because of the band-aid, I wanted a kiss and a hug and a promise everything would be alright. Instead, I feel as though I was going 90 miles an hour and hit the wall, no warning, followed by intense silence. I need someone to scoop me off the pavement, set something right and help me put the pieces back in place, but it feels more as though slowly, painfully, haltingly, I am scraping myself off the wall. Where are you? I don't want to do this alone. Not anymore. I need you.
I hear you. Sometimes. I think. But I'm so jaded now, so torn, so exhausted, if there is a faint whisper, it disappears again and still I'm left with shadows in the night and dreams that keep me tossing and turning. My anchor has detached and I feel as though I am floating, hoping to hit land by accident. I never learned to read the stars and my compass has proved broken. I wish your word was more than dust, more than ash, more than stories of the more faithful than I.
My life was a fun-house mirror fest and now, I am starting to see what is real and what was distorted before, but in that, I have lost how to define so many things, and to be sure, you. I don't know how to relate to you now. I am not the little girl I was, struggling to understand, I'm not yet a mature woman, weathered by life, but instead, somewhere in between longing to find sure footing. Who are you, who am I and who are you and who am I in relation to each other? You have not shown up in the ways I wanted, I desired, I expected. Nothing has been as I wanted or expected, but I guess that is the ultimate tragedy of life. What now then?
I stand facing you and for the first time in my life, I have no words. I'm fresh out. My desperation is gone, my anger somewhere just above simmering, my wounds bleeding, but no longer gushing and with a touch of defiance, I ask, "What now?" I am obviously not who I thought I was, and neither are you, so where do we start? If I cannot expect a knight in shining armor, what can I expect? How would you wish to redefine... everything?
Maybe this is as you say; biting into solid food after having been nursed on milk for so long. Maybe I got it wrong and the milk isn't just fuzzy feelings, but the real deception is in thinking theology and words of wisdom are solid food. This can't be such since those things have left me high and dry. They are nails on a chalkboard making me shudder with disdain. I have been brought to silence, to foolishness, to humility by my utter and complete inadequacy, my temper tantrums, my addiction to the appearance of love and my draw to the definable. I am ruined by falsehood, humiliated by the immense power of pain. I shudder again, but not at a sound, instead at a memory of my own belief in the power of understanding. I trusted the path of knowledge and it lead me to my own demise.
So now, once again, empty of anything besides distrust and fear, I just ask one thing: Have you left me too? With every false image shattered, where will you stand? My naivete betrayed me, will childish faith now as well? As Job once shouted in indignation, I fairly whisper in fear, "Show yourself to me." And even if it has, even if you are to speak to me as a woman instead of a girl, please, I beg you, just speak. Melt a heart that never wanted to turn to stone, but is doing only what it can to survive. Re-teach me what I long to know.
Open my eyes, my mind, my soul, but mostly, open my heart. I am subject to this mystery of pain and life, hoping not to understand, but instead to accept. I am asking for no material gain, no blessing of quantifiable measure, but I ask for the immeasurable, the impossible, the unattainable, I ask for peace. I ask for hope, real hope, true hope, you hope. I ask for presence. It's lonely here. My pretty dresses and fancy shoes only betray my need to feel adequate when my insecurities are so close to the surface. Most look closely and see right through. Tell me I'm not alone. Tell me you're here. Still the memories, the fears, the betrayal, the truths and lies that collide for one night. Do what nothing else has been able to do, and for a moment, take the weight from my chest, stop the quivering in my hands, quiet the voices and for one night, let me rest. Let me sleep through a night, ease for just a moment what I carry everyday.
But if you don't. If you choose to let the noises rage, the unsettling tumult and the weight crush; if you choose to remain silent, to let the distance remain and the distrust to exist, what can I say? The mystery remains.
It was such a pretty evening. Now it is a pretty night. There are stars in abundance reaching down to the horizon, a cool breeze picking up pieces of stray hair....
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