Rare Beneath

There is but one touch that can lift a spirit from the dark recesses of evil where it is submerged.  The touch of holiness.

“I’m trading my sorrows, I’m trading my shame. I’m laying them down for the joy of the Lord.” – Trading my Sorrows

This morning I was carrying the curse of inexplicable fury.  There was a raging power in me that was destructive and terrible.  It had the ability to make me lose my focus and the sense of honest goodness that somehow still lives in me.  I was both furious and controlled, joyful yet seething with righteous anger.

But one breath from the sacred one that loves us replenished the dry earth of my heart with his living water of joy.  Yet he also filled me with a hunger that none in this world can satisfy.  Nowhere else have I found true and everlasting completeness.

So, while my heart looked sideways at someone unworthy of it, he was calling me to his greater love. While I tarried with dark dreams and ignoble desires, he was inviting me to the refreshing river of his infinite mercy.

“You’re my friend and you are my brother, even though you are a King.” – As the Deer

While my eyes yearned for the sight of one undeserving face, he was asking me to look to him and see the incomparable beauty of his grace.

Jesus lives.

Am I mediocre?

Among the many who claim to love you, am I just another?

Have I no special place, no prior claim?

Perhaps they find in you that which I also see.  Perhaps they all can tell how real you are, how true.

I have not chosen to love you yet, because it seems to me that either you have been in love with someone all this time or you have never known what it is to love.  These two choices leave me confused.  If you are the former, then who could it be? Yet if you are the latter, perhaps I would understand.

You have so many friends and so many hide or try to stop their hearts from loving you. You know this to be true.  You are a master at keeping them at a distance. Never misleading them or giving them hope for something that you cannot give.  Perhaps you guard your heart unconsciously against all those who wish to claim you for their own.  Or perhaps you’ve already given it, to someone no one knows.

I cannot love you yet.  Because like you, I guard my heart with care.  Rarely have I known a glimpse of what love can be. Never has another so completely mastered me.

If I have no place, no claim, then perhaps I can still hope.  But uncertainty has never been a state I desired.  It is better for everything to be clear between us now.  Will I be yours?  Will you be mine?

Or will it always be you there, me here; the only thing between us is the speculation that we may be.