It's been a long time. 

Much has changed.  How are you? 

Some days I sit here and I wonder why.  Why have I come here, and to what end?  The difference between before and now is that the question of what I'm meant to do here has not come up...  and yet here I am, the question has not come up, and yet I respond. 

Am I doing my best?  Am I slacking?  Am I doing a disservice? 

And then finally, why am I torturing myself? 

I suppose I've made myself that way.  Ever since I found that an ideal was possible, I started getting jealous for the prize.  The cost of standing out is cheap enough for me to pay.  But I've run into some roadblocks.  And they are all labeled ME.  They are my own roadblocks.  My own laziness.  My own hunger for acceptance.  My own desire for rest.  My own fear of failure.  Me.  My own fears.  I hate it.  I hate it but apparently not enough to do something significant about it at the moments that have passed.

But Iwant.  I want.  Iwantitsobad.  And Divine help is the only thing that can help me. 

O God
In the fleeting sands of my time
You have counted every grain
And here I come to You
In the absence of clever rhyme and reason
Where pain and loss are but stepping stones

I want to say that I am Your child
Not because You need the reminder
But because I do;
Praying that this backward glance
Was not too late as I pumped my heels
Ahead of You, my feet already slipping

Up and down and left and right
Useless reels of arrows, a mere jumble of letters, sounds, alphabets,
Blips on some unrecognizable
Radar...  O Lord my bones long to burn
My heart longs to dance,
My marrow craves You

I yearn for direction, this single-engine plane
Already on a crash-course with disaster
The children play outside but I, I
Am Your child, a child, a little afraid of the night
But too brave to admit it, peering from veiled windows,
Wondering if I grew up too soon, too fast

Too eager to let go of Daddy's hands
Talking too fast, walking too fast,
Too hungry for gain, too in love with the wild,
Bright, uneasy world,
Too eager to finally be able to pedal away
All by myself

And there You have found me

O God,
While all the world tells me to trust myself,
I have learned to trust You not just more, but instead. 
The roads I built so proudly are crooked,
And the steps I've taken must be retraced
Sometimes I even consider
If I even know my way back Home

O Lord, thy Word is a lamp
Unto my feet, and a light
Unto my path.

He asked me to touch
His face, this
Man who stooped down
For me, as one would for a child. 

Trembling I held out my hands

His face was kind, and
His eyes wise and searching, as if
He was asking, What are you
Afraid of?

Everything.  Everything.  
Me.  I touch
His face.   

I was almost surprised to find it warm,
Firm, gentle.  The realness of 
His beard startled me. 

I wanted to feel the vibrations of
His throat and mouth as
He spoke, the coarseness of
His forehead, the creases on
His cheek. 

They are all so real...

He held out His hands to hold mine,
They too were warm, gentle, slightly worn,
I turned them over to see scars.  Marvelling,
I pressed my fingers on them. 
My eyes meet His. 

Thank You. 

He smiled at me.  Not a problem at all. 

I could have stood there holding His hands in mine forever.
It is where life met life,
and death was buried there
Along with my self-defeat, my ironies, and my broken heart.

O Lord, my heart is fixed...

For I have handled You with my own hands,
I have touched You, and lived,
Because I have felt Your life-giving breath in my soul,
And I live  because I know
That You live.