Miracles and dreams electrify my brain waves as my life’s happenings continue to amaze, stupefy, humble, and inspire gratitude for living the adventures of my trail-blazing breath-taking experiences. Sometimes surreal describes the depth of symbolic staging I witness within my mind and heart’s theatrical performances during contemplation.
With childlike inquisitiveness, I envision myself walking in the streets of Nazareth, Capernaum, Jerusalem, and Bethany, following this man who reaches into my very core, capturing my attention. From a safe distance, I observe, then move closer through the multitude of the curious, offended, believing, faithfully obedient, and afflicted, while hiding in the background. I feel penetrating intimate knowledge seeping through my veins. Tears swell inside from an overflowing cup of love for him. I imagine he gently lifts my face in his hands, softly brushes my hair aside, faces into my eyes with knowledge, and touches my moistened cheeks. Peace envelops my being, a miracle. He reads the angst, frustration, depression, happiness, sorrows, joys, through my eyes, countenance, and posture, and he knows. More than knowledge, he understands completely, he feels, and miraculously heals my infirmities of heart, mind, body, and soul! And so the story unfolds.
Beginning in January 2020, a darkness began laying its heavy blanket of despairing grief upon my shoulders. With the weight of heavy armour, struggling to move, to rise and lift, I fell to my knees, head bowed low, unable to free myself from the accompanying pain with every breath. This cloak of blackness, fastened tight across my chest, curtained my mind in shadows. Night chased day into oblivion for several months as I cried for help, pleading for escape. I reflected on Christ, scriptures I knew, trying desperately to remove the burdening threatening to bury me alive. I wished the earth would open and swallow me whole at one point during this debilitating chapter playing as an act on my life’s stage. I felt ashamed and embarrassed, disappointed with myself, a shadow of the me I knew, but I continuously sought solace in prayer, reading, and writing.
Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you;
Holy Bible, King James Version, Matthew 7:7-8
For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
Holy Bible, King James Version, James 1:5-6
But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.
Come, unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Holy Bible, King James Version, Matthew 11:28-30
Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
For yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
Still, I prayed earnestly, pleaded, and cried. So much happened in these months where coping became almost impossible, yet . . . Thinking about hope, belief, faith, and trust elicited inexpressible feelings surfacing like tiny light beams breaking through thick, black storm clouds. I had to look to see. I had to see to hope. His subtle, almost invisible touch began wiping away the blinding, fog-like haze afflicting my broken heart through protected tear ducts. A dream, a sincere prayer, and hope becomes a miracle! Not in my time, but little by little, the light penetrates, lifting me. Words form in poetic refrain, and I listen to the sounds of silence no one else can hear. They are meant for me.
I’m so alone.
“Sometime lonely but never alone,”
The voice spoke to me.
“I knew this sadness would come to you,
for I saw it while on bended knee.
I felt the pain you have long before it came to you;
for, in agony, tears streaming down my face,
I offered willingly to take your place.
So cry as you must,
but remember I am the One to trust.
I see, I feel, I know.
Let me bring balm to your wounded, broken soul.”
I don’t know how.
“Like the snowflakes fall, drop to your knees.
I am there beside you hearing your pleas.
Remember my promise of scarlet and snow?
Listen to my voice, I speak words you long to know.
It’s true, believe, let me lift this burden for it is mine.
I see, I feel, I know.
Let me bring balm to your wounded, broken soul.”
“The love, peace, and comfort that you seek is real.
My prayers, my tears, my blood, and body are the seal
That binds me to you and you to me.
Open your heart, mind, and eyes to see.
All is not lost, there is a plan; the price I paid.
Choose not to doubt, let yourself live, the pain will fade.
I see, I feel, I know.
Let me bring balm to your wounded, broken soul.”
Vicki Nicholls © January 2020
This is my testimony borne of sacred moments. You are not alone in grief and pain. You are known by God and His Son, Jesus Christ. They are light and warmth. There are no shadows without light. There is nothing they cannot heal, touch, and make whole. Their vision is greater than ours. I trust, I know, I feel, I love, I worship, and I long to be alive with every breath they grant me.
I have so much to accept, to share, to learn, to give, to kneel in humble adoration expressing gratitude in exemplifying their trust in me. I believe that, as expressed in Peter Pan’s story, “To live will be an awfully big adventure.”
=>What gives you motivation when the burdens of depression, despair, lack of hope, and lack of faith feel daunting and inescapable? Where do you turn for peace, rest, relief, hope?
Life Happens in Scriptural Musings. . . so does the Master’s Touch, and Rooftops, and Dioramas, Prayers, What Lack I Yet, Swords and Shields, Rescues, the Shepherd, and Faith and Wholeness.
Life Happen … so does Dispelling Emptiness in Aloneness, and Aw-ha Moments, Landscapes, so do . . ?, so . . ., Storms, Skeletons, Feet, Tents, Father/Daughter Memories, Missing Pieces, Waves, Gingerbread, What am I to do Now, and Choices.
