Sunday, November 7, 2010

A hundred Million Pounds

In my short lifetime I've not dealt too extensively with tragedy, and that with which I have dealt now resides in the portion of my mind dedicated solely to memories that feel as though they never happened.  In the midst of the most real tragedy I've faced to date, I am struck by my backwards thinking.
I feel so weighed down.  Tied around my wrists are balloons made of all the shock, confusion, horror, sadness, anger, hatred, pride, hopelessness, and general depravity I am battling.  My heart weighs a hundred million pounds, and my ribs are shrinking over my lungs.  The waves of turmoil have carried me out to the depths of the darkest sea and I flail about, trying to rid myself of all of my lead balloons.  My chest keeps growing smaller and smaller, and as I gasp for breath only water fills my lungs.  I tell myself that if I could just get loose of these balloons, I could float back up to the surface where my lungs can become drunk on oxygen again. The more I fight against my bonds, the faster I sink into the darkness of despair.  "I can kick back up to the surface," I tell myself again and again. "My savior is waiting there for me."  It is to no avail.  The sunlight has disappeared behind the murk of the leagues of ocean.  Darkness envelopes my already hazy consciousness and my last glimmers of hope fade to black.  That's where I found him.  When I was beyond life and beyond death, buried in the deepest and darkest of oceans, sinking against my will, he drew me towards him and breathed new life into me.  My waterlogged lungs were made to breathe again and my bonds held new meaning as the mechanisms that brought me into the arms of my savior.  He's never untied them- these lead balloons- but they are no longer a bondage to me, for he has picked me up and carries me in the palm of his hand, that I may never grow weary in this world but look to the hope of spending eternity looking upon his face.
As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all the day long, “Where is your God?” These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I would go with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God  with glad shouts and songs of praise, a multitude keeping festival.
Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount Mizar. Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls; all your breakers and your waves have gone over me. By day the LORD commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life. I say to God, my rock: “Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?” As with a deadly wound in my bones, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me all the day long, “Where is your God?”
Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.
                                   -Psalm 42

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