Pulling Tents, Pulling Teeth…Again

So its happening again. What I thought was behind me. And the devil has tried to define me by names that he crafted to set me for an eternity as his companion in the pit. But God. I can already tell that he – the devil – is going to be very lonely without me. Because God has not lost His reach over me. He still is LORD, even if it’s happening again.

It’s happening again and I seem to have lost my foothold. To be falling – But I sense Him hold me. He shields me against the swaying chants of a coven that was created to do me wrong; to delight in the whirlwind against my life, to desire my destruction, despair and death, though it would not profit them at all. God laughs, and speaks, and I emerge from the blur, IN HIS ARMS.

It’s happening again, and He reminds me about last time. That even then, even when He manifested through help He sent, He was then my Help then and will be today. He calls me to avail myself in covenant with Him, He speaks and I fall asleep in His Arms – learning that a storm does not have to rob me of rest. That He is The Storm. He is IN The storm. He LORD OVER the storm. And that this storm is a test. Not for Him Who Already knows incomparably more and is Himself, Knowledge and Wisdom; but that I too, His Beloved, would understand just how much He has increased in me, as The Word of God.

It’s happening again, and I am at rest. He reminds me of the beginning; that even BEFORE He made man, He had spoken and made everything else. Even though like Mary I wonder out loud in His Presence, how this could be – since I am without human help, I surrender to The Power of His Word – let it be unto me LORD, ONLY in accordance to Your Word and Will. I take my cross, and take a walk with The Author of The Universe, The Living God, The Commander of Heaven’s hosts, My Groom, My Home Eternal. The One Who Speaks and His Word cannot be resisted by the absence of what is tangible. I rest. I rest. I rest. I rest. No matter what.

“For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.”

James 1:23-24

#IamaTentofTheLivingGod#ComeandSee#EvenSoComeLORDJESUS#MyHomeMyLifeMyLove#MyFriend#MyHelp#MyDefense#ThePilgrimProgresses#TheDayGodMadeForMe#GodsDay#MySonginTheNight

“I will be glad and rejoice in Your Love, for You saw my affliction and knew the anguish of my soul. You have not given me into the hands of the enemy but have set my feet in a spacious place.”

Psalm 31:7–8

vipadhiambo@gmail.com

After Goodbye…

THE DISTANCE BETWEEN HELLO AND GOODBYE IS OFTEN SURPRISINGLY SHORT… the time span between the happiest day in your life (ahem…a particular space and season of your life) and the most traumatic, still short. Extremely. The longer you live, the more surely you realize that separations are part of Life. Intrinsically. Life reminds us often brutally, of the privilege we have of being in relationships, associations, vocations, careers…for a moment. And then doors shut, and sometimes never open up to you, again. Forever. Sometimes. Sometimes your try the window, the back door, the gutter, the basement, the neighbor’s balcony…nothing…YOU ARE LOCKED OUT. Emphatically. Of all separations, death is perhaps the most respectable. If it happens well, naturally without human effort or interference. In the sense that you get your public’s ‘permission’ to mourn. Their support. Their participation in the final rites, rituals. Also…sometimes. No guarantees in this life as am finding out. And yet paradoxically, of all separations, death is perhaps the cruelest. The most unfair. Final. You cannot text that last word, sentiment…apology…affirmation…comfort. YOU CANNOT RESET.

And yet today…my mind is on the separation of the living. The snatching up of something that you thought would last forever…that you would present before God as a trophy for lack of a better word immediately, a legacy, your crown in life. At least one of your most precious. And the multiple times that hurts…when you think you have healed and moved on, a day breaks, night falls, it rains, you take a bath, teargas cannister explodes, the look in a baby’s eyes, a joke, a song, a neighbor comes home, calls, a bicycle bell rings, a scent that you always thought was theirs but find actually became yours – together, an annoying habit you blamed them for but find that somehow you became…a name, their name…and your heart breaks. You hear something they said about you, they text you and unexpected emotion almost immobilize you. And for a moment its akin to the pain of standing before an open grave, watching all the explanations go down, and the ground cover these, and you are not ready…and no one understands why you who is Strength in person suddenly disintegrates…why suddenly you take on the persona of a lunatic. You cannot call someone and just cry and they understand. Their ‘get on with it’ tears at you, opens you to battles you never anticipated and trained for. ‘You can and will do better’ and you are still not too sure you want to…and yet certain you do at the same time. The confusion. And you are back there, watching it go down, on your own, your whole being trying to force time to pause, and yet compelled to put in the first fistful of sand…mud…and you are not ready for the onslaught of shovels of mud that cover what was precious…the flowers that cover where it is buried do not, can not in any way comfort you from the horror of what is lost…for a time, or forever. and you stand there stoically, while you want to just to fall down and never get up…be buried along…never face…the things…that come with being without what you have just lost. You are not ready…but here it is. Separation is here. You need your friends, family, but they have good reason not to be there…they still have links to maintain…their hopes…you understand don’t you? You do. You do. Many associations are situational…and you are no longer in that situation Hun.

And you walk away from that grave, to another…grave to grave it seems…varying sizes of graves that you are not allowed to mourn over. To linger…to ask questions, its not dignified…get on with it…accept and move on…we feign it till it becomes our reality. Feigning a healing that never happened because the grieving never did. It was no small matter, but you feel compelled to treat it as such… ‘Mami, my friend is not talking to me anymore’. ABBA, my close friend, the one I dined with, the one I trusted, has lifted their heel, dusted me off and ridden into the sunset without as much as a goodbye. ABBA, the job I loved…is no longer mine; the colleagues I thought were family for a season, no longer know me; the child You gave me after the doctors said I could not have has defined me as dishonorable and unworthy of them; the house I thought I would live in forever actually has another landlord; my country no longer considers me their citizen; LORD the one You sent to help me, is now doing my mission in You exceeding harm; LORD the one who was exclusively mine now prefers a community approach…I get up, I pick up my crosses, and I follow You…

Ahem…I don’t even know what I have said up there…just that separations are on my mind. And that the distance between Hello and Goodbye, the seasons of our lives, can be brutally short. But I am grateful…to have been happy once. Once several times. And to live this Life that I am privileged to live. To have what I still do. To have woken up today. I am blessed.

Shalom.

vipslit@yahoo.ca