DRY BONES REVIVED

Hurting
I tumble into bed with knots in my stomach and grief in my throat. Dear people with good intentions lost in labyrinths of longings and allegiances. I love them. I can’t fix it. I can’t sleep. I can’t…

In the morning, an iron grip around my rib cage begins its searing squeeze. Soon, these red-hot fingers turn every drop of water into lava in my chest, and by night, I sink into survival mode of just trying to breathe while fire surges through me.

Maybe stress. Maybe a virus. Maybe warfare.

Somewhere in my drought dreams, after days with just few sips of water, my soul releases any hold on the intricacies of responsibilities and worries – into surrender. As I hear my body moan, waves of affection wash through me every time I feel my loved ones close. Thank you for loving me. Nothing else. Peace.

Miraculously, my man and I still manage to board the plane to the honeymoon escape, we’ve so pined for. It’s day four in this furnace, but I’ve learned that adding a bit of baking soda to water lessens the pain of sipping it. Diluted apple juice and the excruciating first bites of a cracker breaks the suction of oblivion from swallowing me. When we land, the sickness has begun its slow, slinking retreat.

Healing

Outrageous generosity lends us a red convertible Corvette. True story! Gliding through the landscape, worship music pulses through us. Hours, miles disappear into the horizon. We are flying. The familiar lines of poetic truth blow through our souls, and we have no other words.

Weak, I ride each melodious line as if I never heard the poetic truth before. “All to Jesus I surrender ~ Take it all or take me now” ~ feels like I’m born again, feels like I’m living ~ You have come running; You tore down every wall, all the while You’re shouting, “My love, you’re worth it all” ~ “that my life may be like perfume at Your feet…”

Deep-sounding drums pound fresh pulse into my wobbly body, while synthesizers send my spirit soaring, a bird dancing in the wind among the wildflower covered mountains. Vocals and guitars caress weary places within – ahhh

Singing full throat (one of us mostly off-key), our truest loves and longings leaping through our skin to be absorbed into the stretches and epochs that roll over this ancient land.

From gasp to gasp at indescribable splendor, through dusty desert hues, lavender, mossy greens to deep pine shadows and sparkling cobalt waters. Pain, stress, and fear evaporate in the windswept majesty ~ arms wide open ~ the east to the west ~ all is new ~ all is eternal, or soon will be.

Immovable rocks, rugged and upright like the man I adore, whipped by timeless salty storms, still standing. Every breaking wave sprays them with ever fresh cold froth as heaven crashes into earth, the invisible splashing the visible world with blessings like champagne bubbles.

Like a tribal drum, His Name reverberates through everything, His triumph breathing through all the irrepressible life here ~ fragrant air ~ sun-kissed ~ Presence ~

There is truth in this beauty; I can taste it, and it doesn’t burn…

The Artist, who created this splendor just to delight us, smiles at our ecstasy ~ a Father, His baby cooing as He swirls her around.

I want to always view my life through this lens.

From a distant pirate radio station, familiar imposters (anxiety, inadequacy, fret), aim their scratchy signals at our thoughts, but on this backdrop, they are easily tuned out. But to stay here in an attempt to avoid them, would be futile. To shrink from obedience to better worship, oxymoronic.

The vortex that sucks us into the small, the ugly, the distorted, is the lie ~ the beauty from these wide, open spaces is true. Trying to inhale the horizon and let the widths expand with me, I prepare to return home.

Home, where rays of His glory break brilliant through smog.
Home, where the needs are too many and my strength too small, and unless He moves, nothing matters. Home where you are, the beloved people of my life.

I want to see all this when I look at you: the waves breaking against the rocks of your life, spraying white champagne blessings ~ wild flowers hiding from the winds of your fears and the crevices where hope draws life from deep springs ~ Son-kissed!

Daily, the Artist creates masterpieces less obvious, but far more splendorous, as crippled souls are touched and taught to crawl, to walk, to dance, to fly in His healing majesty.

Yes, we live in a wasteland of selfishness and brokenness and stress and sickness and taxes – love in souls, shipwrecked by defeat. When we tune out His song, we wreck His image like rebellious children ripping wings of butterflies – and we don’t even know it.

So His melodies plead more hauntingly here, tight harmonies illuminating dark corners ~ drums pounding against rock-hard hearts ~ violins whispering to forsaken souls that we are not.

I can’t fix this. But maybe I can help you hear His melodies dancing through you, resonating with your most inner being, and maybe you can help me remember to listen to mine.

I don’t want the song to fade.