The resting tree

I sat at the computer furiously pounding away.  What was it?!  I had spent the last half hour trying to recover my itunes password, which had mysteriously changed somewhere up in the “cloud”, or whatever it is.  Everyday it’s something new and today it happened to be this.  Why do things keep changing up on me?

Even the weather has been crazy.  Isn’t it January?  I found myself running out the door bundled up only to realize is was a balmy 80 degrees.  This is how life seems lately.  There have been so many ups and downs twists and turns, that it’s brought that “live for the day” phrase to a whole new level.  And I’m not just talking about the weather.  Life has been very hard on us and the people that we love.    Stress and fear weigh heavy on me.  I am still not sure how we will make it through this month.  I have no idea how the kids will survive if something happens to me or Jared.  My mind can only handle so much, which is why I usually leave the very long-term worry up to Jared – he’s got it covered through the next twenty years.

I pulled my fingers off the keyboard.  I was utterly depleted.

I closed my eyes and rested my face against the chair.

I drifted up and vaporized into a cloud.  I crumbled into thousands of particles and blew away….

When I was a child, I remember one warm summer night as I lay in our pasture back home.  I cupped my hands around my face and let the stars fill my entire vision.  I could find no space free from their light.  The strangest feeling came over me in that moment.  It was as if the veil of this world had lifted ever so slightly and all at once I felt the majesty and infiniteness and power of it all.  My little life seemed so small and fleeting and I became almost afraid.  It was too big, too overwhelming.   Yet somewhere inside I felt a light shine brighter than all those stars and I knew that I was very loved.  I’ll never forget that night.

When I opened my eyes, the world around me was still the same.  It still felt like summer in January. I still didn’t know my itunes password.  Emma and Hayden still had this thing called autism and they didn’t come up to me and start talking with their mouths in full fluent sentences..  As far as I knew, we were still living in this two bedroom apartment we call “The Siren House” because it’s right next to a police station.

But I had found a place to rest again.  It had washed over me as it did when I was that child staring up at the night sky.  But it wasn’t that pasture from my childhood daydream and  it wasn’t somewhere out in the Milky Way.   I found it  far beyond those infinite stars and galaxies, light years beyond all knowledge and understanding.  I found it planted somewhere deep within, unchanging and unfailing as it searches out all heartbreak, joy, pain, and love –  breathing through all seasons of my life and remaining to my very last.  Nothing will ever be able to separate me from it – not death or life, not the present nor future, nor any powers, or height or depth or anything in all creation…..

Why should I be afraid?  Why should I worry?  In my darkest hours I will find rest.  In my weakness I will find strength.  For the same great Creator who splattered those magnificent stars across the universe, is the very same God who dwells within my heart.