Hope is not a street. It's a highway. Hope costs nothing. It arrives free, yet it must be fed. Hope promised and not delivered will make people sick. It's never in our best interest to promise hope, and deliver only legislation (law.) | HOPE is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
-Emily Dickinson | Proverbs 13:12 Hope deferred makes the heart sick: but when the desire is fulfilled, it is a tree of life.
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Hebrews 7:19 For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did; by which we draw near unto God.
| Where do you find hope? What do you do to increase your own hope? What fuels your hope for tomorrow? What tangible event in your life right now gives you hope? What do you see as hopeless? Who do you have the most hope for in your family? Look for hope.
With the clouds spread overhead, and the earth darkened, we can't really see what is around us. Clouds are usually visible because they darken the sun. An eclipse wouldn't be an eclipse if the sun were on the other side of the world from us. But, sometimes there is this other-worldly perspective when we look up at the sky at night, when it has been raining, and we can see clouds, night clouds. This phenomenon is a strange perspective which we are granted, an almost discernment which allows us to see, really see what it is that has made us blind.
Because of night clouds, I refuse to allow myself to be smothered by events. For, it is the gale winds that blow the clouds from overhead. And, when your storms begin to blow over, and when the clouds fly apart, then you will see what the elements are hiding from your eyes. In the same manner, we all too often fail to notice our blessings.
This is a backyard snow scene. The night out was dark, pitch black. The security light came on to reveal the shadows that wouldn't have been visible had it not been for the blanket of snow that had fallen freshly on the ground. This phenomenon is similar to the stark beauty of night clouds.
| A Night Thought
Lo! where the Moon along the sky
Sails with her happy destiny;
Oft is she hid from mortal eye
Or dimly seen,
But when the clouds asunder fly
How bright her mien!
Far different we--a froward race,
Thousands though rich in Fortune's grace
With cherished sullenness of pace
Their way pursue,
Ingrates who wear a smileless face
The whole year through.
If kindred humours e'er would make
My spirit droop for drooping's sake,
From Fancy following in thy wake,
Bright ship of heaven!
A counter impulse let me take
And be forgiven.
William Wordsworth | These night clouds, time lapsed by Sasha, are different from most others found in art. Most show clouds from the light of the moon, and are much like day clouds. These reveal the special type of night clouds with no light behind them. I think these kind of night clouds are special because I am delighted when I am walking outside at night, and can see them. It surprises me that they are even visible at all. That's special!
| Take my life, for an instance. I believe that Satan blew in these clouds of physical problems to cloud my view of all the blessings God was bringing into my life. There I was, being blessed by God. God had brought my son Travis to a point where he was about to graduate from high school, after years of struggling through autism and Asberger's Syndrome. God had brought my son Matt back into my life, after years of separation. And, God had brought Larry into my life just a month before, after two decades of raising my sons alone.
Satan looked up just a moment too late. It was a done deal. So, he let out a blood-curdling scream and clouds came billowing out before me, in an attempt to cloud all these blessings from my eyes. Hello evil doctors. Hello scars and more surgeries. Hello electrocuting implant. Hello Transverse Myelitis. Goodby career. Goodby fair weather friends. Goodby 40% of my income for life. Or so it seemed.
And, therein is my point. So it seemed! I see through those night clouds. I see them even in the dark. I know they are there, but I know what they are trying to hide. Even when the night seems dark, there is my husband and my son, reminding me that there is a God behind those clouds. And, He is active in my life, or else they wouldn't be here. Just this past week we paid the balance on Travis' tuition and fees for this Summer semester at West Georgia Tech. I am so proud he made it to this point. And, Larry has been teaching him how to drive this week, something that I have not been able to do. I had taken him to get his learners before the clouds covered my sky. Now, Larry is finishing the job. We still have to buy his textbooks, and classes start in four weeks.
And, yes I have had friends who couldn't understand my pride over my son's steps. They thought that because he wasn't "gifted" I had nothing to be proud of. That was their biggest mistake. I am not proud of my children because they are gifted. I am proud of them because I have been gifted. My firstborn's name means "Gift of God," Matthew. God gave me two children. I love these gifts. I am gifted.
Now, as I sit here beneath these night clouds, I can see the world as it really is, in the light of day. The darkness does not cloud my mind's eyes. It is the God that I know is there, despite my failings, regardless of my limitations, irrespective of my handicap; it is He who I am relying on to see me through the dark night clouds. And, I may need my sunglasses any moment now. For, who knows when the sun will rise on my tomorrow?!
A discussion of rain, and its many forms, as it relates to personal rainstorms in our lives. I have a splint on my arm tonight so, Podcast instead of typing. :) Tonight's Podcast is available here or at my Podcast page: http://reason2believehim.libsyn.com/
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Isaiah 57:15 Eternity is a vast place where God lives. The subject of eternity can be both entrancing and off-putting at the same time. It is something that we want to comprehend, and yet something that we fear to explore. I have written a little about the subject of eternity in two prior blogs, which you may be interested in reading, if you haven't seen them yet. They are: From One Side of Heaven to the Other and Chariots of God.
Edgar Allen Poe was a brilliant man, in some ways much like Steve Jobs today. But, he lived in the first half of the 1800's, and only lived forty years. He was a writer, and wrote short stories of invention, mystery, macabre, and poems. He often wrote of characters using opium, and of opium dens, and it was widely rumored that he used opium, though this is disputed. The circumstances of his death are quite mysterious. But, he is most well remembered for his lengthy poem, "The Raven," which I have included at the end of tonight's blog. If you care to read it, just click the line at the bottom to see more.
In the poem, the narrator is mourning the loss of his love, Lenore. Poe did lose his wife to sickness in real life. The narrator of the poem is surprised by a bird... a dark raven that appears on his window ledge and alights on a statue of Pallas, the God of Wisdom. The man had been sitting in his study remembering sadly Lenore when the bird appeared and he took it for an omen, because the bird only spoke the one word, "nevermore," at each of his questions about the future. Revelation 21:4
The poem is an exploration of the idea of eternity and pain without God. Those of us who believe, we have a hope for no more pain. Those who do not believe, can only look for an eternity of emptiness and pain. This is what makes Poe's poem so devastating... the lack of hope for eternity. I wouldn't want to face an eternity of nevermore. I choose the eternity of no more pain. The Raven
poem by: Edgar Allen Poe...click to read poem
Los contadores de estrellas
Yo estoy cansado.
Miro esta ciudad
—una ciudad cualquiera--
donde ha veinte años vivo.
Todo está igual.
Un niño
inútilmente cuenta las estrellas
en el balcón vecino.
Yo me
pongo también...
Pero él va más deprisa:
no consigo alcanzarle:
Una, dos, tres, cuatro,
cinco...
No consigo alcanzarle.
Una, dos ...
tres...
cuatro...
cinco…
Dámaso Alonso
In this simple poem two people are each counting stars: a 20 something man, and his neighbor boy on a nearby balcony. The boy is counting rapidly, excitedly: one, two three, four, five...
He is listening silently and he hears the boy counting and he tries to
count them too, but can't keep up with the eager child. He counts them slower:
one, two three, four, five...
Why is it that he is counting the stars
slower than the child? The opening line says that he is tired, so he counts the
stars. It is to be inferred that his mind is full: full of other stars from
other years, full of the years that have elapsed and the memories that have
developed under those same stars, and perhaps full of even more marvel at the
splendor that is before him than the mind of the inexperienced child can yet
conceive. (After all, the more you understand about the stars, the more you find
them unbelievable. The more you discover, the less you find we really know.)
He is in no hurry. He gets lost in the splendor. All of this splendor
pushes everything else out of his mind, emptying him of all but the splendor of
God’s handiwork. None of this is stated, yet all of this is evident, even in the
stars. Sometimes the silence speaks so loud.
James 1:17-19 Can you imagine why God wants to give us His gifts? It is unimaginable. But, it is of His own free will. Some will argue about why God does not rid the world of all evil. But, here James takes for granted that God is all good and everything good comes from God. Go ahead and count the gifts of God, if you can. He gives without number.
Here I've translated the poem into a simple English version:
The Star Counters
I'm tired.
I look at this city
A city where (probably Madrid, Spain)
I've lived for 20 something years
Everything is the same.
a child
with no reason count the stars
on a neighboring balcony.
And me,
I'm also ...
But he goes faster
I can't keep up
One, two, three, four, five...
I'm much slower.
One, two ...
three ...
four ...
five ...
I slept soundly last night, and dreamed happy dreams. Sleep is precious
when you hit your forties. We get tired. But, I can remember, in the past, times
I have felt restless. Sometimes a sense of restlessness can be so great and
troublesome that we can’t focus our minds on the tasks at hand. Sometimes it can
prevent our sleep as well.
In Hebrews 4:9-11 the writer of Hebrews is preaching a sermon (in the
last half of chapter three and chapter four) using Psalm 95 as his text. David
had mentioned the fact that many of the children of Israel were not allowed to
enter into the “rest” of Canaan Land due to their lack of faith, but died in the
wilderness over their 40 year wanderings. Instead their children entered into
that glorious rest provided by God. He goes on to tie in the fact that god wants
us to receive the rest from our own “good works” where we tried to pay for sins,
and instead allow His blood to cover our sins. Afterall, the Sabbath means
resting from our work.
In Hebrews, it is explained that the Sabbath Day rest of the Jews (work
six days, rest on the seventh) was a shadow or type of God’s rest that is to be
provided to His children. Hebrews is pointing out that because David said
“Today, if you will hear His voice,” then there must be another rest remaining
for the people of God, more than a Sunday nap between services, more than Canaan
Land for the Jews.
This is also shown in the prophetic passage in Isaiah 11:10. We know
that our rest comes from the lord. Psalm 37:7 and Matthew 11:28 points us in the
direction of our most bountiful source of rest and peace here on Earth. Prayer
is the source of peace and strength, our rest in God’s arms.
“At that heavenly sound
My soul, that is sunk in forgetfulness,
Recovers its judgment
And the lost memory
Of its first, exalted origin.
It transverses the ether
Until it reaches the highest sphere,
And there it hears another mode
Of imperishable music,
The first, the source of all.
Here the soul steers
Through a sea of sweetness, and at last
Sinks so deep within,
That it hears or feels
No strange or rare event.
O blessed trance!
O death that gives life! O sweet oblivion!
Could I but remain in your repose
Without being restored
Ever to these low and abject senses!
To this bliss I call you,
Glory of Apollo’s sacred choir,
Friends whom I love
Beyond all treasure,
Since all visible things are sorrowful tears.
Oh, may your music, Salinas,
Sound everlasting in my ears;
Hearing it my senses awaken to God’s goodness,
And all else remain oblivious.”
by Luis de Leon - Ode to Salinas*
* Fragment of a larger poem, which was translated from the Spanish
original.
Salinas was a blind organist who played for the Cathedral of Salamanca,
Spain in the 1500’s. Leon apparently loved to hear Salinas play, and as other
portions of the poem explain, hearing the blind man play about the raptures of
heaven reminded him of how truly “blind” men are who seek only gold to satisfy
themselves here on Earth. The poem is speaking of organ music, a delightful
sound in which it is easy to lose yourself. But, there are parallels here drawn,
in my mind, to prayer.
Where we can turn music on loud enough when we just want to relax at
home, to stop our mind from working, providing a sense of rest sometimes from
troubled thoughts, prayer can give a rest to the restless that unburdens the
mind, body, and soul. The difference is like anesthetic and antiseptic.
Anesthetic numbs pain by dulling the senses, masking the symptoms. Antiseptic
cleanses a wound, allowing healing to take place.
When I can’t take time aside to pray, like while working, music
functions well to turn our thoughts to God. But, when I lay everything aside,
and turn my thoughts to God, focusing on who He is, my mind not only forgets the
details of the day, but wounds actually begin to shrink and heal. Heart pain is
erased in prayer.
In prayer, I can “cross that heavenly sphere,” and sink so deep within
His “sea of sweetness” that I feel nothing. When I hear His voice “sounding
everlastingly in my ears,” my senses die to everything else, external and
internal distractions, and “awaken to God’s goodness” where all else fades in
oblivion. This rest is the greatest peace to be found on Earth.
Hebrews warns us that the disobedience of an unbelieving heart can
prevent us from receiving the rest of God, like in the wilderness of wanderings.
Afterall, if you don’t have faith that God can keep your restless spirit in His
hands, then you won’t bother to pray for peace.
More is included in God’s rest than prayer. Worship also provides that
glorious rest of God, again illustrated by the poem, and experienced in church
services. The Holy Ghost experience is a glorious rest for all who will partake.
The Heavenly City will be our eternal rest. Paul said that eyes have never seen
what God has in store for those who love God. 1 Corinthians 2:9 The peace of God
can surround our restless spirits and give us rest beyond our own understanding.
Philippians 4:7 You know, I can only imagine heaven, but prayer is a bit of
heaven here on Earth, for those who will enter into that rest.
Sweet dreams!
I've added two more poems to the bottom of "The Child Within Me" Page of my Poetry Collection on this website. I haven't written any new poetry in a few years, though I wrote a huge notebook full over a period of 20 years. The two I just added are Peace and Security. I wrote them the summer after I turned 15, just two summers after I met Jesus. Both of them have Scripture allusions.
Psalms 4:8 I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep:
for thou, LORD, only makest me dwell in safety.
Matthew 10:28 And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to
kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body
in hell.
I've also filled up about 20 journals, not counting the very first one I wrote. I finished my first diary (one of those tiny 5 year locking kinds) when I was about 16, and then built a fire in the backyard just to burn it, out of concern that anyone might ever read my words. :) I was really shy. But, I've got past that, and now I just keep them all locked away.
When Jesus came into my life, it drove a lot of fear out of my heart. I don't know how. I had been afraid of the dark even, and was tormented with nightmares almost every night for much of my preteen and early teen years. I would sleep walk often, and many times I woke the whole house up screaming from bad dreams. It was so bad that I became apprehensive about going to sleep at night, because I knew the dreams would return. But, with salvation came safety that could not be provided by people. And, the night terrors left. But, I was never afraid of storms. Storms, after I met Jesus, became a peaceful time when I was reminded that God was more powerful than man; my Father looking over all His children.
I've felt such a sense of peace and safety since, that I even worked security at night for a couple of years, when my boys were young, and I "moonlighted" literally. :) I can remember the glow of my flashlight beam casting across the parking lots, between the parked transfer truck trailers, when I would come out of the vacant plant to make my night rounds. The moonlight was beautiful, and there was this seperate peace in the darkness, because I could see. I had already backslid and divorced by that time, but the fear was gone, because God had removed all the sources of fear from around me, setting me in a safety that reached farther than I had run.
God did that for me. And, I knew that He was my safety. There have been many times I've been aware of angels surrounding me, God's bodyguards. In Genesis 22, we read a strange story of Abraham laying his son on an altar of wood, and raising a knife, when an angel, or perhaps the Spirit of God Himself, cryed out for Abraham to not harm the boy. Imagine the effect this had to have had on his son, Isaac... hearing the angels speak on his behalf from heaven! We don't read much about Isaac, beyond his birth, this scene, his marriage, and the wells he re-dug, and then the focus shifts to his children. But, you know he had to be a changed man; had to always remember that God was watching over him and keeping him safe from harm.
Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-jireh, which means God provided, or the Lord is my Provider. There was an old country song I remember hearing as a child that always reminds me of Jesus.
"You're my bread when I'm hungry.
You're my shelter from troubled winds.
You're my friend when I'm lonely.
And, in the cold, You keep me warm."
I have no idea who sang that song. But, it fits Jehovah-jireh. And, when the nights are dark, He is the beam of light piercing the night... my Security Guard.
* 8 **~* Light glowing orbs dancing, spinning
luminescent fiery sentinels keeping time as they watch.
What are they watching, those glowing lights in the heavens,
with their connect-the-dot stick figures,
resembling the art of a preschooler?
Those stars are burning inside-outside their nuclear hearts,
on fire with God’s Word,
set ablaze by the spoken creative act of the Creator on Day four…
and yet before you and I on day six. *88***~**
Looking at the window today as the sun poured in, I saw not the sun’s beam, but
a ray of dust…and I remembered the Keeper of the Stars. The dust we see around
us, on the ground, on our computer screens, and yes, even the dust of our skin,
all circulates the globe in the rapid transit of the wind currents. We receive
wind from Africa quickly on any given day. But, where does the dust in Africa
come from? Where does it all come from? Dust floats endlessly around the galaxy,
the remnants of stars…yes, we are made of stardust. Even our daystar…the Sun
lends us her dust. God reached down and formed man from the dust of the ground,
but then he gave the sun her companions in the dark vast night of space…the
sister stars. And, like all sisters, those stars, and ours, have been sharing
their basics for centuries past, right up until this very moment while you are
reading…my page.
You are not only bathed in stardust, but you are sharing that dust, and
the same components of all the created beings who ever lived. Whether King
David, or Martin Luther, or Hitler, or Stalin, or Dr. King, or your father,
our basic elements, mere dust, all float endlessly around our atmosphere.
And, so you cat lovers are part & one with dear Miss Kitty. You knew you
felt some kinship, but it is not an evolutionary kinship. You are sharing
the stardust. But, there is plenty to go around.
Do not think anything is ever lost with God. He holds you in the palm of
His hand. Though you are formed from the dust, the Creator breathed into you His
spirit, the breath of life, and you became a living soul. Just like the Egyptian
Sphinx becomes covered with the desert dust, and must be constantly
re-excavated, to reveal the colossal cat, when the dust of your body is sifted
through the fingers of God, your soul will live on and return to the Maker. God
keeps you, you who are made of stardust, bathed in starlight for the number of
your days, God keeps you forever as His creation. Remember who made you little
star.
Ecclesiastes 12:1 Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while
the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no
pleasure in them;
Genesis 1:14-19 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the
heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for
seasons, and for days, and years: And let them be for lights in the firmament
of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. And God made two
great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule
the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the
heaven to give light upon the earth, And to rule over the day and over the
night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
"Be well assured that on our side
The abiding oceans fight,
Though headlong wind and heaping tide
Make us their sport to-night.
By force of weather not of war
In jeopardy we steer,
Then welcome Fate's discourtesy
Whereby it shall appear,
How in all time of our distress,
And our deliverance too,
The game is more than the player of the game,
And the ship is more than the crew"
Fragment from "A Song in Storm"
Poem by Rudyard Kipling
Kipling struck a chord here with the last two lines of this stanza. He points out the simple fact that there is something greater, bigger than us. The fact that we play this game of life points to a set of rules we play by. There is no game that is relative, having no set rules and realities, except for the game played by Alice and the assorted creatures in Alice in Wonderland...called the Caucus Race. The more limitations placed on the players of the game, the greater the enthusiasm for the game and the thrill of victory for the winner. Compare playing checkers to chess. Once you've played chess, checkers lacks something.
Hebrews 1:1-2 "God, who at many times and in various manners spoke in
time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Has in these last days spoken unto
us by his Son, whom he has appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made
the worlds;"
Has God spoken in your world? Do you really need a God? If you have all the answers within your own self, then you are your own god. If God is God, then He contains within Himself the unknown answers of nature, of history, and of redemption. God speaks in different ways, at different times. The act of scorning divine revelation is rebellion, or the refusal to allow God to be God. When we insist on thinking things through for ourselves, externally from God's divine and specific revealed truth, we are trying to be masters of our own existence, claiming to be the ultimate reality and reason. Ironically, there is a ditch on both sides of the road. Some scorn God's divine revelation by inventing prophecies that contradict God's already revealed truth in the Bible. God can not contradict Himself.
I saw this bumper sign on a car in Atlanta today. It reminds me of the recent predictions by Harold Camping. When men specifically add to God's word like this they are rebelling against God's will. I knew a sweet older lady who used to get those photocopied handwritten pages of prophecies from televangelists like Ernest Angeley and the others. They were basically ransom notes, photocopied and mailed to pensioners around the country. You had to pay to get the blessing promised. That is just wrong! We tend to talk things through with each other, to sound our ideas and values off our peers, to question our teachers, expecting the answers to mold to our own "reasonable" ideas. All of this is senseless. After all, if you are building furniture you want defined measures and standards, and not approximations..."Oh, about from here to there sounds good to me." No, you wouldn't ask for opinions but for a measuring tape. But, when we use reason to define morality, we do so at the expense of allowing God to be God. There is no reason beyond the reality of Jesus Christ. If Jesus is the God of the Universe, then He must be reason incarnate. If not, then He is not God. When God speaks, He does not silence the workings of our intellect. He liberates the mind of man to a reason and reality larger than himself. Our job is to accept and conform to that larger perspective of ultimate truth and reality, instead of trying to construct our own reality. God does not offend my reason. He only offends my pride of reason, which pretends that I am able to answer the central questions of life in and of my own intellect. Hand me the rule book if I propose to play this game! I not only can not answer the central questions of life, in and of my own powers of intellect, but I fail at asking the central questions. What are the big questions of life? What really matters? Food? health? war? shelter? marriage? peace? security? family? race? social position? education? class? wealth? recreation? literature? politics? Who is God? What is death about? Where is the grave? Can sins be forgiven? How can I reach God? even trying to brainstorm a simple list, I reveal the shortcomings of my own human reasoning. Has God really spoken? We as humans have the capacity of mind to reason out alternatives. Only God can provide the moral yardstick to judge between correct and incorrect alternatives. Alternatives will not lead us to the path of salvation. If we have all the answers, we don't need a Saviour. We don't need a god. We become our own idol. Reason must match a morality. Morality is ir-relative of reason. Morality is definition and reality. Someone said that no man is an island to himself, floating around out there defining his own realities. One ex-navy friend said that he learned on a carrier ship that it's the really big things in life that provide stability. Climb into a little boat and find yourself tossed about all over the sea. But, on a carrier, you don't even notice the waves. That's where we find the presence of the church in our lives to be so important. If we try to stay afloat on our own, we will sink alone. But, the church provides direction and stability to the "crew." When a sailor loses sight of the railings, he ends up wet, to the cry of man overboard. I found the following poem on the face of a greeting card in a college bookstore in 1983. I kept it all these years instead of giving it to somebody, the real purpose of cards. It captured me, because the poem points out the need for something real. All around we can hear the cry,
Who am I? Who am I?
So many search for the answer
Till the day they die.
So many people come and go
Never learning what they must know.
What am I meant for? What shall I do?
God, dear God, if only I knew.
Some search to identify with someone else,
Never having the courage to look to themselves.
They search with vigor and with vim,
For the answer that lies only within.
For some it is easy to run away,
They haven't the courage to face the next day.
For some it is easy to face the next day,
They haven't the courage to turn away.
All around we can hear the cry,
Who am I? Who am I?
So many search for the answer
Till the day they die.
And yet the answer is as clear as day and night,
You must do what makes you feel right.
Be real...
Above all, be real.
Be real by Paul Samuels born 1944, a Messianic Jew
More can be found at: http://www.paulsamuels.com/poems.html Though I love the poem, notice the answer that he claims is as "clear as day and night," is really murky? He never defines reality. He leads you up to the edge of a cliff to see the world, and then screams, "Jump!" I always suspected he didn't know himself what was real when he wrote the poem. And, I can tell you from personal experience that many things that "feel right" will get you in trouble. There are "real" people sitting in prison and stretched out in graveyards. We need a God bigger than the reality of our own mind.
I remember the scent of the honeysuckles, they linger over years, on the breeze, and drift in and out of the trees. When the wind carried the scent past me, I would throw my bike to the side of the trail. Dropping to my knees, I would tear the stem gently and drink the nectar with my eyes closed. Then, as if the moment might be lost forever, I would breathe deep, and hang on tight to the memory. Never let go. The Spring came so suddenly drifting by me on Cinco de Mayo, as we crossed from the car to the restaurant...there above the smells of the Mexican food came the singing scent of honeysuckles from somewhere unseen. Then again leaving the chiropractor's office, the next day, I saw their bright yellow and white clusters hanging on the vines only because I'd had to park out back. There they were, a faint scent from over in the trees. I couldn't smell or taste them, so close yet unreachable. I sat there and wept, before driving away. Driving home from church tonight with the windows down, the honeysuckles came drifting on the breeze, their scent filling the car, in and out of the windows lingering uncontainably, unerasably in my head. I could taste the dew inside their tender petals, smell the nectar, just like riding my bike when I was a child.
I remember the rumble of the trains, clanking on the tracks across the street and through the field. Our tiny trailer shook with the vibration of the engine, and with the tromping of his little feet, and the cry from his lips, "train, it's a train!" My firstborn loved the trains. He would throw open the front door. The shrill whistle's call would linger for minutes, carry across the wind, and fill his eyes with delightful glee. On hearing a night train, I would tip toe to his room, push the door gently open enough to see him there in the dark, his face pressed to the window while the lights drifted past his window, and the clanking tracks left their indelible mark in his eyes and my heart. When we pulled up to the tracks yesterday, Mother's Day, I heard the rumbling of the engine, the whistle's call, but I couldn't hear the voice from so many years gone by. A little later in the evening, the tastes of an Italian dinner: the breadsticks, the olive oil, the salad was still on my mind when the phone rang. I knew it was my firstborn. What he said, was "Happy Mother's Day, Mom!" But what I heard was the sound of the trains, just like when he was at home so long ago.
I remember waking up, just barely, my eyes heavy with sleep as he climbed out of bed at 3:30 this morning. I drifted in and out of my coma like state and turned over only when I smelled the scent of the coffee drifting back to our bedroom. My eyes suddenly got a boost, because I knew coffee was coming around the doorway any second. And, there he was, showered, dressed, looking at me with those eyes that said, "I'll miss you." I sat in my recliner, comfortable, relaxing, when I looked over to the tv sitting silent, dark. I remembered the wide screen filled with the screaming race cars of the video games yesterday evening, acting as a backdrop to the curve of his face, lighting up his animated features as he seemed to be really there on the track, behind the wheel. Those same eyes from this morning seemed to be there one second, and suddenly they were not. The dark screen made the house seem empty now without him. When I walked into the church tonight, he stood there, looking at me with those eyes, and it felt like he'd been right beside me all day. I was home.
God has loved me most of my remembered life. The years have rolled past, in and out of my life, but God is a constant, remaining. I always knew I would have that little boy to love, I expected God to deliver. After all, I had laid in bed at night as a young girl, praying for God to give me brown eyed babies. They found the brown eyes somewhere other than genetics amazingly. God delivered on my prayers. And, I expected the love of my life, any day now as each year without him fell away, one less year to wait. I asked God for him. God listens, you know. But, I never expected the honeysuckles. They were an added bonus, unbidden, without a prayer, sent from God in heaven as a reminder of memories I have not yet known, of what celestial joys will taste like, to remind me to fall to my knees with my eyes closed and drink in the delightful nectar of His unending love...that found me when I wasn't looking. Somethings you never expect.
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