2016) FREE

Written on May 19, 2016.

Eleven men gathered in a tiny room at stairway’s top, shivered to the core, shuddered to the bone. Dream laid before them, shards and shrapnel. Hearts nearly bankrupt of beating. Jagged breaths. Ragged thoughts.

Threadbare souls waited, hidden, for the discovery that must come. Pulled apart for inquisitions and inquiries, they saw. For the first time. For the finding was not about where they hid, but what was hidden within them. In the kernel of the questioning, they realized, one by one and all together the answer that had been there from the start, tapping and rapping to be heard.

With hearts teetering upon the point of the sword He brought, the bell tolled and they knew. He didn’t come to slay but to save. The saber was not meant to slash mankind to pieces but to pierce every chamber of every heart. In an instant, they knew why they found and followed. It wasn’t for war. It was for Wonder. The wonder of something messy and marvelous. Love.

As time sped and slowed, understanding came like the dawn of day. He wasn’t gone. He was going. And if they didn’t go too, crosses cradled and carried, what was incited would over take that which was ignited. And love would be swallowed in a grave of fear and fury.

But to go would take more that steps on stones. To arrive on the day of rushing winds and falling fire and all the days of ever and after, would need more than dangling declarations and precipice promises.

For finding love is not the same as following Love. Following is not the same as finalizing. Finding is the turn of the key. Following is the flight it takes. Until it is absolutely everywhere. And finalizing, well it is what happens when a heart moves from feeling to running FREE. Full and fierce. Flowing fountain. Spontaneous spring. Responding, resonating river. Nothing hidden or hoarded. Ready to rupture, willing to break if that is where His goes. If that’s what it does.

Unable to defend its own keep so that it might be the champion of another’s that needs weary replaced by wild. Despair by delight. Fear by faith.

Resurrected by ruin. Freed by the spent. Liberated by lavish.

They went. Free. Answered. Bold and brave. To set fire to the rain of tears they cried. He shed. To blow the blaze beyond with the breath of His last gasp and risen ruah. A rush and rumble. For a return. For He wasn’t just going. He was coming. He is coming. Running free hearts will meet Him first on the tender and tilled thoroughfare of harvest and hope. For trust joins and leaves nothing separate. And together we just. Run. Faster. Farther.

Today, as I thought and thanked for eleven men, my heart was arrested. At dagger’s tip. Threads and tethers were cut. What lay beneath was caressed from bound to boundless. I saw. I knew. I see. I know. There were places where love had been found but not yet freed to go anywhere, do anything. Just because I couldn’t live, I can’t love until it’s absolutely everywhere just yet. And He won’t go without me. Because He wants us. All of us. To come together.

JOURNAL JUBILEE:
Let Him arrest your heart, showing you places you have found love but haven’t had it freed yet. And then a little bit down the road, journal what free feels like.