Heat. Walls. Hope.

It was the heat, I think, that was the worst of it. The darkness I actually could take. But combine that with a thick, sweltering atomsphere of oppressive heat, the pressure is unbearable.

I can't remember why I am here. I know it was my choice. I wanted it. There is a purpose. A means to an end. There always is. In my life, absolutes are the foundation I walk on.

Things never shift or walk in shadows, there is never a "maybe" or " perhaps", there is only this or that, black or white, hot or cold. It's infuriating at times. What wouldn't I give to have the vague comfort of an abstract meaningless moment. At least it would feel good...maybe.

Yet, somehow, after falling asleep, I had lost all knowledge of why I was here, only the frustrating abstract reminder, that yes, you have to be here. Until, well...it's not quiet clear until when.

That's what sleep must do to you here...numb your senses, stifles your memory, suffocate your desires. I love sleep. I hate sleep.

I know this is bad. I know I'm in for it. Yet, still a part of me knows that this is exactly what is meant to happen. There was no other way to get to my destination. No other way to be challenged. I love challenges, right? I wish I could remember.

It's never easy remembering, maybe that's why I'm glad I fell asleep. Yet I really hate that I fell asleep. Why did I in the first place? The darkness pressed in further, tightened by the heat. I swallowed, realizing I am sitting up now. I of course cannot see, but never the less I know I can move. I stretch out my legs, testing their strength. They are numb, like everything else. I groan and wait until the feeling returns. Fire seems to burn through my limbs. I unsteadily decide to crawl. It wasn't far to the wall. How I knew there was a wall there is beyond me, but it was true. In ten feet I reached it.

It was a stone wall, cold to the touch. It felt good. I press my face against it's hard, coolness and then stood to me feet, leaning against the solid, strength. The oppressive heat still holds me unrelentingly. I am far from good, but the wall is encouraging. Letting a smile drip from my lips, I begin walking slowly, one hand on the rough-cut stones. Walls are dangerous things. Stones are too. But dangerous doesn't always mean bad. Walls protect things. I wonder what this wall is protecting?

I blinked....feeling like I'd uncovered a secret. Was that why I was here? To get inside this wall? Why the heat? Why the darkness? Why did I need to get in?

Nothing matched or made sense. Nothing was black or white, it was all colliding in a mesh of pressure. My chest was starting to hurt.

But one thing it was doing, it was pressing me on to follow this wall. Whevere it led, I would follow. Somehow the coolness of the stones took an edge off the heat. Just a little. This small spark of hope was quite powerful.

A journal entry...

So it's been a while since I've posted anything on here. Came across something I wrote in my journal last month and thought it would be something worth other peoples' time...maybe. Just a short little thing I wrote between me and Jesus...once again, a story.

I sat at the foot of the great oak. I knew my forehead was wrinkled in seriousness and that my mouth was turned down in a soft, but thoughtful frown. I could do nothing to stop it. Even when I heard his gentle footfalls on the path along the lake.

I didn't even look up when he crept down and sat beside me. I felt him tip his face to get a good look into mine.

"How's my girl?" he said in his dear familiar voice.Somehow, even this did not take away the edginess inside my gut.

"I don't know," I replied honestly, leaning my chin in my palm and turning to return his gaze. It was as beautiful as always, full of peace. I needed that solidarity.

I shook my head continuing to speak," It's all so wrong. I feel like nothing can truly be fixed in this world."

He didn't smile and his face grew solemn." I know," he paused letting those two words sink deep inside my soul. They gripped me like iron, and then he said," ...you feel like everyone, one way or another is always going to eventually make a wrong choice and we are all waiting on that moment when we do and once it comes nothing will ever fix it. This feels you with dread and despair, you feel doomed."

I stared at him, feeling that dark despair creeping into me even as he spoke. He had said it with such feeling. I knew he felt it too. That thought alone gripped me with terror. If he felt the same way then we all were truly doomed.

Reading my thoughts, as he always did, he then said," I feel every thought and emotion you have, don't think I don't, but I don't believe the lies they tell you. I never believe something cannot be restored. I don't believe in never or in endings."

I blinked, feeling the frustration build, like a dam about to burst. The words he spoke could not quiet me.

"People only see what they want to see, they play games and deceive. How do you know what truth is? Just when you believe, that belief is ripped away with gnawing little doubts. I wish I could save people, you know, I hate what I see. How do you watch it happen? Doesn't your heart break?"

I knew his answer, well, at least I thought I did. I knew also that all of this had nothing to do with me, especially when it came to saving people or making things right, but I was selfish and all I could do was question and rant like a spoiled child.

I took a deep breath, a tear sliding down my cheek. Full of kindness and grace as always, he wiped it away and slid closer, not speaking for an entire moment as he wrapped one arm around my waist, folding me into his chest.

"Every second I breath," he whispered into my ear," but then I sit here with you and I see the sunset and I remember one thing."

"What?" I whispered back, my heart pounding. That was not the answer I expected him to say.

"You are beautiful," he kissed my cheek," and what ever it takes to make you believe that I will sacrifice."

"You are crazy," I replied, closing my eyes even as the words strangely gave me comfort.

"My ways are not your ways," he said softly.

I suddenly felt much better.

A real feeling....

The lights glow with enthusiasm, then dim to a lull of solitude. The voices rise like an assembly, yet each distinctly different. Every sound unique, beautiful and full of pure, childlike peace and contentment. How could life be more satisfying and beautiful then it is right here, right now in this moment? Every little motion and movement is the action of close and intimate, comfortable friends.

A soft smile, a silly laugh, the touch of a hand and the rise and fall of conversation. Everyone is gathered to the gentle rasp of an acoustic guitar, faces raised in beauty, voices yearning with longing. could there really be anything more simple and pure as this?

I write, yet can capture nothing of this moment in time that will soon end as the evening slips by, minute by minute, second by second. How time takes a vicious unrelenting hold on our lives. I wish I could hit the pause button, yet to stop such beauty would be an abomination to it's life. I want to experience a thousand more like it.

Where are the angels, where is the sweet fragrance? Can I hold onto this forever? Do these precious moments just fade. Never...they will continue on for eternity...heaven is waiting with a treasure store of them.

Dance.

When I opened my eyes, the gory battlefield was gone. Instead, a huge meadow spread out all around me. I blinked; my heart beginning to pound. Dazzling white surrounded me, a sea of it. A million white daisies. The sweetest of perfumes filled my senses with a heady richness.

I raised my head, fingers rising from the soft grass under my hands. A gentle breeze blew, lifting my hair off my neck and swirling the aromas around me. I reached up smiling towards the clear blue sky, closing my eyes fir just a moment breathe deeply.

Then my eyes snapped back open as other sensations assaulted me. The pain, wounds, sweat and blood has vanished!

I glanced over my skin and gasped as I saw beautiful, glowing skin, every inch of me! I felt of my face, suddenly giggling.

And then I saw the dress. Simple, white but delicately woven with tiny golden strands. It was perfectly fitted, mid-calf and silky. Small corded straps clung tightly to my bare shoulders holding the bodice in place.

I jumped to my feet, bare feet digging into the ground. The field of daises began to throb with emotion. There was only one thing I wanted to do.

Dance.

Who is this man?

It was only a smile of gentle compassion, yet in that moment the world might as well have flashed like a bolt of electricity through my vision. Why would this man take the time to glance my way with such innocent interest? No one looked at me with such mercy and kindness...only pity.

There was no pity in his blue eyes, only a gut-aching beauty. No one that beautiful had ever looked at me before. I dropped my eyes from his, willing him to walk away...like all the others. Do not give what I do not deserve, I forcefully thought.

Instead, I was shocked beyond comprehension as a voice spoke, a voice I knew was his.

"I saw you sitting here, and I cannot walk on by. Why is your head bowed to the dust? Look at me."

I raised my face, nearly wincing as my eyes met the intensity of his own.

"Why do you want me to leave?"

I blinked as I felt my soul ripped open at his words. Who could smile like he had and then read my thoughts like an open book?

"You do not have to sit here anymore. I've come to take you away."

He was completely straightforward and bold, every thought completely focused on me, with a purposefulness that frightened me. Within seconds my world had changed.

I had said nothing until now.

"Leave while you have the chance, they will come for you, and there is nothing you can do."

His face instantly changed; blue eyes suddenly darkening to a deep-seated passionate anger. The anger was not directed at me, but at the "they" I spoke of. My mind and heart jumped at the strange emotion his response invoked within me.

"I have searched for you for many months now. I do not walk away just walk away. "They" have no power over me, nor do "they" give me fear."

I trembled for a split second and involuntarily drew back as he took a closer step forward.

"Please..." I whispered.

"You have cried out for help," he said softly," This is what it takes. Today is the day."

I curled into a tight ball against the doorway, my hair falling in front of my face. I began sobbing, scared of this man's unfamiliar kindness and strength, yet scared of my captors' terror and oppression just as much.

The man knelt before me on one knee and I felt his hand reach out to brush away my hair.

"I will not leave, tell me, do you want to be free?"

I shrank from his touch, yet slowly nodded.

"Then I want you to do something for me, can you do that?" his eyes probed for an answer with all the tenderness of someone I had never known...a father.

The query in his voice was so trusting it was as if he had no doubt I would do whatever he asked. I shuddered, knowing in my heart I wanted to do nothing. I had always been made to do things, but his voice urged me so earnestly, I found myself nodding once more.

"Give me your hand?" he replied instantly.

I shook, afraid to touch him. He was a man, mens' touch were brutal. Yet my hand slipped into his. His touch was beyond anything I had ever felt. I gasped for a breath, my vision blurring as a searing shot of heat coursed from his fingers into the center of my body. A second strange emotion filled my being, a feeling of longing, of hope and dreams. A picture of a beautiful garden flashed before my eyes, piercing my heart with such desire I thought I would never be able to breath again.

The picture vanished and I returned to the filthy street, kneeling in the dirt, one hand clinging to his blue-eyed man's hand.

My eyes sought his hungrily, like a child's. I realized only he could take me to that garden. I cry escaped my lips and then my vision began to fade again. I felt his hand release mine and then two strong arms lifted me up effortlessly. My head was cradled against his chest.

The last thing I remember before losing conscienceness, was a kind voice speaking in my ear.

"You will be loved as you were created to be."

Thoreau...

I'm not at all certain Thoreau has any answers to life or even is on path to truth in any of his writings. However since I spent two weeks reading on him in English class I feel he derserves some recognition. This is my favorite quote of all time and I was surprised when I found out he was it's author.

" I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essentials factsof life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life..."

Only the Beginning of the Beginning...

What is this Thing that draws people together in worship? What causes a small group of six to ten young people to sit for hours, late into the night singing songs and praying to a Being most would say we cannot see or hear? What is this mystery? Why do we find such beauty here? Who is this God who places such aching longings in our souls? I cannot give emotion it's honor. This is a reality of who we are at the core of our beings. Yet mind, will ...and emotions central to who we are.

In absolute grace the Lord asks us to surrender them all to His ways. How delightful this is. Are we fools to think such a thing? Never.

Sit with Jesus, in a place surrounded by people whose one desire is Jesus, and very quickly your heart will explode with peace, revelation and awareness of Jesus' voice. It is Jesus in your brothers and sisters that beckons you forward, into His presence, deeper into a steadfast spirit of praise. How does this happen? How did my heart reach this place? I feel full and complete beyond measure. Can I sit here forever? Can these faces and voices remain for eternity. Yet, this is not even scratching the surface of these longings.

Even as I love the atomsphere of fellowship, of joining in love towards Jesus and of continually pouring out sacrifices of praise I feel a urgent rush of more desire flooding my spirit. Heaven is like this. I have no doubt of it, but this is only the beginning of the beginning.

Jesus, create a heart of deeper reality. I never want to be satisfied, but always fulfilled. Hold my heart and whisper to me Your truth. Your truth of what is good and holy. Nothing else will I seek.