The fan is whirring above my head and the boys are laughing as they play a video game. It's hot outside. REALLY hot outside. I'm sipping on ice water. I can see through the window the bees buzzing on the shrubs and the rays seem to be begging my less-than-tanned skin to pay them a visit. In this corner of the world, at this moment, everything is in its place. It's easy, predictable, routine.
I open up my laptop and just stare at the screen, bright and blank. I don't type for a while, so the curser just blinks at me, waiting for my next move. I know I'm letting it down.
I have no next move. I'm spent. Completely spent. Not a word to be found in my brain or my heart or my fingers. This last year has been the most wonderful and most difficult of my life. Beauty and suffering mingled together somehow revealing a deep, genuine love. I am finding myself stripped away and camped out in the throne room. I feel like my sleeping bag is just inches away from His feet.
I have no next move.
So I half-heartedly poke at these keys, flailing wildly for some inkling of a thought that might make sense beyond my own head. I'm sure none of them do. I've always had words, always found a way to pen out my story and my season. But I just don't have it. I'm simply weary with the daily motion, the lies, the false assurance, the full squares on the calendar.
I have no next move.
And that scares me. Real life scares me sometimes. Because it's messy. and it's full of blinking cursors. But I'm reminded that when my soul is most dry, Jesus shines clear, ready to blow my mind.
I read Isaiah 43:19 this morning, and just began to weep:
"For I am about to do something new.
See, I have already begun! Do you not see it?
I will make a pathway through the wilderness.
I will create rivers in the dry wasteland."
I literally shivered with anticipation. I can "be still and know", despite this. My heart feels covered in a thick coating of dust. I'm scared- to speak, to write, to be still. I'm aching to see the new works, the new pathways, the rivers flowing. I see the wasteland, from horizon to horizon.
Even still, He is at work. He is creating. In me and for me, He is working.
So for now, I'm just going to exist in the joy of the Lord. His joy for me. His joy over me and in me. and that will be my strength. I can't rely on myself or earthly beings, but the grace of God is more than enough. and that calls for joy. that is reason to march on.
In spite of the blinking cursor and the volume of real life, I can be still. I can know truth.
And the truth is that He loves me. and the pathways and rivers will be worth the wait.
