Made of Clay

I become distracted, overfilling myself with the wrong foods, carrying the wrong burdens, instead of simply taking His yoke. Till I am broken once again.

I become impatient. Desecrating sacred moments with dissatisfaction. Writhing anxiously with tasks incomplete. Aching. Deep. Emptiness. And somehow I forget all about the beauty that swells around me pleading me to simply stop still and notice. The decor of four sweet girls feels like clutter and background noise to the foreground of "me" and "mine". Sudden territorial instincts bare their teeth. I thought these nets had fallen away since I'd caught that big fish. I wake up wishing it was time to go to bed, disinterested in the day. Grasping for "me" moments in the thin broth I've made for us all to swallow. Wallow in like an unmade bed. And I do swallow the stinging tears that fall down my cheeks as I crawl to my feet asking the same monotonous questions. Why is this pattern of feeling like I'm failing grace... His Love for me, ever repeating itself through the days like a faulty roll of film? There are the beginnings when I rise from a bed of hot tears and shame. And the middle parts, soft and full as a cool pillow. Where I lay my head silently filling myself with His forgiveness. Sitting there in the half light listening, waiting. My empty hands open, my tears cried out, my heart somehow healed in the baptism of saline. My body feeling like debris. Me the publican, unable to even lift my eyes heavenward.

Oh how the earth tugs. How it's gravity pulls me down. Yes, something deep within me remembers deep that I'm made of nothing but dust and water. Substance of the fields that grow both wheat and weeds. Yet the weeds take no careful hand to help them grow, the wheat, a little more so. I am clay. Fragmented from being hardened, moistened, shaped and broken over and over again. Has the Potter been trying to fashion me into a golden chalice for so long ?.... Still here I am a breaking, leaking, earthen pot. Since from the muddy ground I emerge once again. Dust myself down, allow the stains to evaporate into His light once more. How hard it is for a hurting heart to let go of the mess. To let Him just carry the burden, wash my feet, Heal my heart. And every time I am sure my vision is secure. Till once again I falter and fall. My King, you fell three times, yet I haven't stopped falling since we met. Both in love with you and over myself. I'm such an obstacle aren't I. It's not you. It's me. I quietly pray soft as a whisper, that somehow through it all, you are working in me still. Through these falterings, falls, tears, embraces, faltering falls again. Maybe that is what Hope is for.

 

Hope that the brokenness in me can be worked into good once I turn my face toward You again God. Doesn't good solid clay need a little tempering sand and grit to keep it strong? It's what I've heard. Maybe my "temper" will be the humility I've needed for the alchemy to happen. And one day this grit, dust, ashes, water of a soul will become gold in Your Hands.

  "To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified."

  Part of Imperfect Prose Thursday over at In the Hush of the Moon

When your wound reveals your hidden life.

I'm trying to hide my wounds. Been trying.
Truth doesn't always look pretty. Beauty, real beauty comes at a cost.

The real kind of beautiful shatters all images.
It can't be seen on the outside of life, the pleasant, painted exteriors. This kind of beautiful can only be touched by the heart, the upper chamber, the secret place.

The path is narrow isn't it? That wasn't just a saying.

So narrow, at times, I think I might have to fold myself into nothing just to walk it. And steep.
The air is so thin, didn't really imagine that.

In my head were pictures of transfiguration's, lush greenness, hope budding wild flowers along the way.
...Scenes from the book of "Beautiful".

The real way is all darkness to the eyes, it's only beautiful to the soul.

Seems I was rescued from the cross, only to be given the choice to take it up again.

But this time for Love not the consequences of pain and fear.

And I want to, in His embrace I want to. But then the burden comes and I shrink away.

I forget that He will bring the breath, and the strength and the journey. All He asks is I bring myself, real, true, broken, wounded as I am.

He recognises my beauty through my wounds.

But when I feel so far away from refreshment, and the clarity of clean, clear, reviving air that I start to lose consciousness of what really matters, where my life really comes from. I become muddled and distracted.

I let too many thoughts crowd Him out. And a thousand voices mingle like debris around me like strangers at a party and I feel just as lonely. I wonder, am I alive still beneath it?
Has he held onto me even when I let my hand slip away?
Busy with my own "My chasing's after the wind".

I have motives I don't want others to see.
I want the honey and the sweetness, but without the sting of the bee.

I want God's breath to live inside of me but I don't want the brokenness that let's it in.
Making me touch the sharp shards, the edges of my nothingness, my emptiness, the truth of me, when I'm left to my own devices.

I gaze at the false pictures of me that flatter my walls. There are ones that look like a good imitation of everything I want to be. Holy, simple, true, pure in heart, peaceful, childlike, gentle...
Humble.
All the while knowing I'm gazing in the wrong direction. I should be looking for Him.
As the lover in Song of Songs, ran barefoot through the streets after her beloved...

I plaster, paint and build. Yet love causes me to tear down, peel back, expose the naked structure, the wound of my heart.

I know that those pieces, those images of goodness that decorate the walls of my house are like fragments of truth buried deep in my soul. And they are the shore I keep trying to sail toward in my small boat, on a tide that has been turned against it by the gravity of "me".
They are fragile images of my true life "hidden" with Him. And sometimes they haunt, ache, tremble, weep.
Like memories that reflect from the water's surface of what was once and could yet be.

But without His grace all I'm left with is the truth of me. Empty images of beauty that cover the cracks like cheap make up.
The harshness of my voice rasping from the parched land within.
The stone that is my heart, beating without love, just ambition and pride.
The dress I wear to give others an impression of who I am or (who I want to be).
Without really being.
The stuff I think I need to become closer, closer to completion? Like a never ending project that only demands deadlines (and a documented proof of existence).

So this becoming? What is that?

"The beginning of Me is the end of you. You can't make or build this image. Dig down deep, giving yourself away to love. piece
by piece. Till.
All that's left, is Me."

And I gaze at the face of Love, and the heart exposed. Wounded weeping. Salt tears, of baptism.

The desert hermits found God, carrying nothing in their hands but wounds.
Their longing was the loudest call. Louder even than their lives.
Their longing gave all away to purchase a field with a treasure. And the treasure.
Was it their own heart?
Alive, beating, real, deep, down,
down in the dark earth.
A heart resurrected by His Blood. His life. His breath.

Their wounds raised, not hidden and festering, but open wide to the healing Breath.

And they looked like fools didn't they?
Wearing their garlands of thorns.
Still how they must of gleamed like crowns in the sunlight.

Thankful for Grace

Slowly, quietly I come. Along this path again. my feet tread, my heart trembles. Like a bird inside my chest. The weeds can look like flowers too you know? Pretty, useful, important. Stuff. Entangles, distracts, turns the soil of my heart to parched clay. I stumble over briers I had not even noticed, I fall and feel, the barren ground of my soul. I need to stop. Turn. Gaze. And let the silence wash over me like a wave of clear, cool, water. These things, this stuff, worthless as dead idols. And I sacrifice to them time and time again, thinking that it's important to pay attention. Plan, organise, structure. Control. And the vine I planted is dying, the fruit is drying on the branch. And all the while I'm watering the weeds and leaving my garden to ruin. But the fragrance, the fragrance of the blossoms he left me all those years ago, Somehow still lingers on the breeze. Reminding me, waking me bleary eyed and sober. So I stand to walk again, along the waters beside the green, green pastures. A little gentler, a little smaller, a little softer, thankful. Always. Thankful for grace. "But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her." "Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain." Photo by Emmy

Conversations With God.... Journaling as a Spiritual Disipline....

Please Visit with Ann today. This is a beautiful series.
A way to seek Him, Hear His voice...
And my own journaling here... over at Scraps of Starlight