Tuesday, February 22, 2011

My dearest God,

We came together as pilgrims, searchers of the living word. We wanted a breath of your fresh spirit living inside and within us. We believed you were present and abiding. We were not disappointed.

A metaphor surfaced and together we reached for new understandings. You lead us to facts we had missed. We shared and prodded one another to look deeper, to travel further uncovering the past in the turns and twists of human living. Like archaeologists we gently brushed away the dust of years gone by and took yet another look. There we found secret treasures revealing the divine in the midst of our human journey.

The aha moments directed us back to you, the true source of our discovery. We realized that there was much left behind in our haste to move into the future with light packs. But our healings, our wholeness, and our power for the future could not be attained without a brief trip back to reclaim the gifts awaiting us.

Like a caravan we traveled together arriving at our destinations pretty quickly because we knew the routine, the challenges, and the hardships; however, once there we grabbed our tools and began to dig, assisting one another in those hard out-of-the-way places. As old truths began to yield life-giving information, we found exactly what we needed in order to move forward.

We began to laugh as another metaphor came into play. Oh how many times, we said to one another, did we return to the old patterns of yesterday, going round and round and round and round, not able for whatever reason to take the road leading us into the morning sunshine of a transformed life. But while there we picked up an unfamiliar language, now a new way to challenge one another in our resistance, reluctance, and unwillingness to budge from "stuck" places. We spoke it all throughout the day causing us to burst into spontaneous laughter again and again. What breakthroughs emerged as we laughed at ourselves and chose the next exit leading us into our exciting adventures.

Only you,
O God,
only you
can lead us
into places
we refused
to go.
For there
you lovingly
guided us
to dimensions
of love
and grace
that carried us
forward in faith.

Yours forever, Andrea