JOURNEYING

    The love of God is to be found in the sweetness of the faces of family and friends. What gracious gifts He sends to His children. Most of these, at the least expected of times. How can you measure such love? It comes down in millions of ways. It is to be found in the kindness of those who love us like the petals of flowers and views out of new windows. I have seen it on unfamiliar city streets and up winding paths surrounded with mossy trees and lush rolling hills. I have felt enveloped in His grace, His most unmerited favor, in crisp white sheets on gracious guest beds. And, in warm hugs of old friends that welcomed me the way I think I will, one day, be welcomed by long departed loved ones and angels rejoicing.
     The joy of God is to be found everywhere. It is the most renewable resource in the world, and I somehow forgot that. But I remembered within the silliness and the board games and fabulous food and happy people. I remembered it in walking down old familiar streets, and exploring new pieces of wonderful as well, with dear and lovely friends.
     The peace of God is to be absorbed like divinely saturated molecules that dance and glow; and which are like a billion tiny fireflies even on a rainy day. How did I forget that? The peace of God is knowing that you are loved exactly where you are at the moment; and that those who hold you ever dearer are waiting for your return. The peace of God is often quiet and restful, but sometimes it is loud and exuberant and laughter filled. There is an aerobic peace that comes after a deep belly laugh. It infuses every corner of your soul.
    There is a place in the mind and heart that says; I have to go, I have to see. It is the place that craves change and renewal of spirit. It is also the same place that, while craving change, has a deep longing to go back and see the places you had once inhabited. Remembered bits of dreams and long lost streets, houses and trees. And when you do go there, even if a hundred things have changed, your soul locks on to all the ways it hasn’t changed. There is a place deep inside that discards all the bad, because nothing is perfect, and chooses to sweetly remember the goodness and all the ways it should have been.
   Then, suddenly you realize that you are somehow feeling whole again, even for a small space of time, and you think; “Oh yes, I had forgotten this feeling.” This well-being is the very essence of Spirit-filled mercy. Such respite does not come from anything that is man-made or prescribed. It is just simply the love of God, the friendship of Jesus.
   It is important to seek wellness, to strive for tangible holistic health……but there is this grand thing that is unearned favor, a gracious surcease from anguish that you no longer thought could be found. No physician or counselor on earth can impart this and no amount of money will purchase it. To feel blackness lift and hope rise is to be touched by the hand of God which often flows through the compassion of others. So how come sometimes it feels as far away from you as the moon and stars?
     I think that in this school, this life of learning, we often get the hard tests and the pop quizzes; finding ourselves in corridors and classrooms where we cannot receive it. But then; just when we feel so ground down by the world that we cannot bear another milligram of its weight…..we get recess! God gives us a party. He showers us with gifts of unreasonable sweetness. He shows us a grand old time. He reminds us that while life is often hard, it is also spectacularly fun. Jesus said He would never leave us or forsake us, (no matter how forsaken, at times, we may feel) and He won’t, He truly won’t. And really, how could we ever appreciate all of that goldenness without moving through the blackness as well?  Tonya Willman ©2011.