L@@King UP

Nietzsche said, “After you’ve gazed long enough into the abyss, it will also gaze into you.”

 In Philippians 4:8, Paul writes, “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.”

Both are right. One tells us how to find peace and happiness, how to help ourselves focus on loving like Christ, while the other flat out warns us of the alternative.  

I have had long staring contests with the abyss, and only now, past half a decade of days, seen clearly my way to look uninhibitedly upon the glory of the other.  Ironically enough, it is the hot depths of despair that burned the cataracts of doubt from my eyes making them clear and clean enough to see God.   

I hope to spend all the rest of my days describing what I see in the depths of joy. I wish to spend the rest of my days in the palm of the gentle hand of Christ. I plan to spend all the rest of my days bathing in the fresh cool waters His fount of love.

I hope, I wish, I plan . . . I pray . . . even as I know I am not in charge anymore.  He decides for me, and He, I know, plans to use me for tasks that will carry me far down away from His embrace into the needs of His people.  Into the depths, again, from which I have so recently emerged, so rapturously been rescued.

The way I know well. He needs someone who knows the way in because he must have someone who can find her way back out. He needs someone who understands why others would descend in the first place. He needs the hands and feet of someone who has been tested by the fire, so no longer fears it. Someone who can endure the fire long enough to bring others out as their will allows them; someone willing to ignore death for the sake of life.

This is not the same route through which I first entered, but I will recognize the way regardless and this time, I will be carrying a Lantern through the darkness. A Lantern planted within me at birth, which now shines through glass as clear as mountain air, glass molten once in a pool of fire, now poured and blown, then shaped and cooled with the artistry of the breath of the Holy Spirit.

I start work, officially, tomorrow.