Dust

I was just recently reading over bits and pieces of a journal I've kept sporadically over the past couple of years. It's my overflow, my space where I can talk with our Father about things that aren't really bloggable.

It's been quite the couple of years.

I'm not really going to share much (hence it being written in a journal in the first place and not on here).

I've learned of crucibles, and I've learned of fire. I've tried God, and He has tried me. I've wrestled with the lesson of finding contentment that exists outside of circumstance, joy that has nothing to do with me and everything to do with the One Who gives it. I've asked to be brought to a fork in the road, only to get there and find that the paths I had to choose between had different names than I was expecting. I've longed to be an instrument of peace, one who seeks justice, and loves mercy, and walks with God humbly. I've been given good friends and good conversations. I've been given pain, cracks in my heart that I don't always know what to do with.

This past September I had a dream.

I don't often remember my dreams, but this one was vivid, real. I woke up crying. In my dream, I had cancer. I had watched my own funeral, I had heard my own words read to those I'd left behind. I grieved in my bed even after I'd awoken, crying for those who hadn't wanted me to leave. I couldn't fall back asleep, so I opened God's book and read, only to find Him speaking words that were of a piece with my dream.

Like as a Father pitieth His children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. For He knoweth our frame; He remembereth that we are dust. As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more. 

But then, Bless the Lord, O my soul.

And Thou openest Thy hand, they are filled with good. Thou hidest Thy face, they are troubled: Thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust. 

But again, Thou sendest forth Thy Spirit, and they are created: and Thou renewest the face of the earth. The glory of the Lord shall endure forever: the Lord shall rejoice in His works. 

And further, My meditation of Him shall be sweet: I will be glad in the Lord.

I felt as though I were being told something important, but I couldn't quite decipher it. And so I was reminded of my own mortality, reminded to let the spiritual pervade so that the temporal would not sway me.

The last thing I read before I drifted off to sleep was a little bit cryptic, but somehow very important.

Until the time that his word came, the word of the Lord tried him. 

Two months after that dream, Dad died. I didn't write in my journal again until December.

This afternoon everything seems fresh. Not just Dad, but all of those other things I never shared here. Everything is raw.

I trust God, deeply, but I do not always understand Him.

And yet there is hope. Beauty can rise from these burned-down husks.

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.