Babtism.

    She stood over her island in a flour dusted apron, the light made everything look like it had been brushed in butter.   She barely looked at me, shook her head as she bent and pushed the wood over dough, rolled it out and cut it through into long thin strips. "It's dead of winter Sarah." She turned from my mud soaked body to drop the white ribbons into boiling water. 

    We lived by a creek and the creek lived by a mud hole my father had dug out to make into a pond.  My friend Emily and I were fascinated equally by both.  My father walked us around the long circle of brown muck shaking his head and telling us he thought it would never fill. He had a way of making things out for the worst, just in case. Once I overheard someone say "That man is the most positive human alive when it comes to things of the spirit, but boy is he a pessimist about everything else." I didn't know what half those words meant at the time, but I was pretty sure he was suggesting my father thought God would likely raise up a dead man before the water in a pond.  Even still I believed every word my father said, and I would worry over it with him. I'd stick branches in the dirt a few inches above the waterline and wait for the two to meet, just to be sure he hadn't dug that hole for nothing. 

    The pond had been built like a giant measuring bowl with a wooded slope forming the lip on one side and the other a narrow rim that abruptly dropped  and disappeared into woods at the bottom of a steep hill.  This worked as the dam.   It was covered in zebra grass which grew so tall it blocked from view a footpath that followed a small stream to the mouth of the creek.  Emily and I would abandon our bikes in the grass and sneak down, leaving but a trail of socks and shoes.  

    The water was just wide enough that one could half heartedly cast a fishing pole without catching the bank on the other end.  It was freckled with large smooth rocks, connected by smaller stones that formed capricious trails from one side to the other. We would take off most of our clothes and drape them from low hung branches then pass the time leaping across the constellations of brown stones, made black with water. It did not matter the weather, as children have a  keen way of not feeling the cold.

    When we would become tired of not so accidentally slipping into the water, we'd spread out our bodies on the larger flattened rocks, finding Jacob pillows in the curves of stone and let our skin dry out.  The conversation always seemed to turn to that of God. Heaven and hell and what happened in the air between. I'd recall to her times my father had laid hands on men who turned strange when their tormented insides were exposed.  We'd shiver at the thought and whisper low about what might be happening all around us if only we could catch a glimpse.  

      On one such occasion, as we spoke of the greater things in hushed voices I told her I had asked God to one day see. Id like to witness the furious light of angels and even the darker parts of shadows, just to be sure I was really here with Him.  My skin prickled at the thought, unsure if what I had asked for was really such a good idea. We had both become quiet, reverently contemplating these things, when I saw a movement in my peripheral.  I glanced to the side, and slipping out of two stacked rocks was the face of a red brown snake. Its smooth angular head lifted to looked me square in the eyes, about a foot from my nose.  

    Now satan himself couldn't have startled me more than that serpent, and come to think of it, it was satan I thought I was looking right at. I was always told to become very still when seeing an animal you had no business being near, but after all our spirit world talk I was thoroughly convinced I wasn't  looking at just any old snake.  I leapt clean off the rock, grabbing Emily by her elbow and screaming the name of the good Lord Jesus as water splashed up our bare legs. The snake reared  and struck forward just where my cheek had been.  

    If someone had been watching they would have thought we were walking on water the way we moved across the creek and up the embankment.  Emily's eyes were as big as moons and her bottom lip was trembling. We grabbed our clothes off the branches  and ran towards the dam. I felt like there were snakes everywhere, sliding under foot and creeping through the legs of the pants slung over my shoulder. We found ourselves  bare-skinned and heaving, doubled over in the slanted grass.

    I stared at Emily, a reflection of my own awe and terror in her pale eyes.  "I saw the devil in that snake, and I don't want the devil inside, so I suppose you ought to baptize me."  

    "Well you'd better baptize me too then," she whispered, her bottom lip still fluttering.  

   


     Memories have a sly way of shrinking and deflating with time. They collide against the hardness of age, and the impact reshapes the way we remember.  My adult mind would like to suggest to my younger self that it was merely a snake sandwiched between two stones, but that  wouldn't be fair. The fledgling me that dwelled within a gangly, tangled haired girl witnessed something else all together.  I am beginning to think these robust, untouched memories of our youth might hold more truth after all,  depending on the kind of  truth you are searching for.  


    And so, this is what shall be remembered.....

    

     The bank that dropped into the pond was steep. We half ran, half slid down its side, powdery skin against black of dirt and roots. Our feet sunk into the mud, surfacing plums of brown mist that wrapped around our waists.  The sky was an ashen dome, its edges bowing to meet the contours of a watery nest. The heavens, all seated in a silent circle, watched  two tiny flecks of white move against the darkness.  

      If words were spoken, voiced prayers to consummate our intent I don't recall them. I can only see the pale yellow of her hair become translucent in the water as she lowered, my hands clinging to her body tilted. She disappeared and then returned, each strand fanned out around her like a crown of wheat.   Tiny rivets of muddy water slid down her face and caught in a pool beneath her neck. Shivering, she turned to me and placed a hand on my back, the other wrapped around my forearm.

 

    For that briefest moment I was nothing more than the stones underfoot, the silver branches grazing heaven. I did not deserve the breath I held, and yet I still received because that is all I could really ever do. I just hadn't known. God poured out the seas He contained in jars, and the pond stretched endless. Hands and feet and belly all there to accept the well inside the water, the life found only in drowning.   I can still close my eyes and feel the cold wet cloth that held me, forever giving back what was His to keep.  I am baptized again and again, filth washed from feathers, left at the bottom of a half full pond. 

 
   

A little story.....

When I was a child my legs grew up before the rest of me did. I was tall and straight with a tangle of mud water hair, dirty fingernails and black high tops that I thought made my brother proud.  My family and I lived on a farm with no animals, apart from a collection of stray dogs and some rabbits held in a pin behind the work shed. There wasn't a lock on the chicken wire hut, just a twig shoved through like a crooked finger. The stray dogs would circle the rabbit house til one of them could reach up their muzzle and wiggle out the branch.  Next thing you knew there would be nothing left but soft grey fur, catching in the taller grasses like dandelions when the wind blew. I'd cry over those rabbits until my father threatened to shoot the dog that killed them. I loved the mutts more. 

We didn't have the money or inclination to get the dogs neutered. They came and went so quickly, with a new one showing up just as soon as another disappeared.  On occasion one would end up pregnant with puppies. My father would tell me it was so by nudging the dog on its back, pointing at a long double row of transparent pink glands pressed outward.  One particular time, he told me I could come see the mother deliver. I watched that dog fervently, waiting for signs that she was going to have her pups.  When it came close, her stomach would sway like a boat, hanging so low I worried she might hurt herself on the wooden steps that led up to the house.  

It was mid February and still dark out when my father came into my room, the light from the hall a piece of pie stretching out towards my face. "Wake up Sarah, there's something for you to see."  

I followed him down the stairs to our small storage room. The space was dark, apart from the orange glow of a  kerosine heater. He pulled at the single bulb string and when light came I saw the dog, laying on its side on a bed of old towels. She was panting and her eyes were nearly closed.  I was nervous she was dying, but my father just nodded and whispered  "watch."  We knelt together and soon after she pushed out the first two of what would be seven puppies.  They were wrapped in a slick purple skin that looked as if it had been dunked in oil. I knew from conversations with my father that she was supposed to eat off this casing so that the puppies could breath. Instead she pushed them to the side with her nose.  Panicked I grabbed them and tore through the skin. Their wet fur matted around their mole like faces, and they hung limp in my hands, without a breath of life. 

Before my father could say as much as a word, I cradled them both against me and ran. Still in my pajamas, feet bare, I did not stop till I had made my way across the lawn towards the garden.  There was frost on the mounds of dirt and the strips of cloth that held up the vines of the pole beans were hardened with ice.  I stopped somewhere in the center of the rows and crouched, looking down at the dead puppies so small in my hands.  I closed my eyes and prayed. 

My father was a preacher, and I had read all kinds of books I found in his study.  When most kids were telling ghost stories, my brother and I were scaring each other reading books about demons and deliverance. I had read many things, but my favorites were always stories about miracles.  Traveling preachers of the past kicking dead babies back to life, or people in faith trying on shoes when they had no feet just to watch them be filled with flesh and bone.  

I prayed and I prayed some more. I whispered over their two little bodies. I stroked their backs, drying them with the cuff of my shirt. I prayed with all the faith in the world. I pictured them in my mind, breathing, and would look down, for a moment thinking I might have seen them move. I held them against my face and begged God to bring them back to life. I am not sure how long I was out there, but the sky had turned from black to grey with approaching morning and I never stopped, even as I heard my fathers boots cracking through the thin skin of ice over the dirt.

He said nothing, but reached out his hand, and in the other he held a small shoe box.  We walked through the garden together, my numb feet sinking into the cold earth. We passed the work shed and the empty rabbit hut with its wire door hanging limp until we reached the woods.  The two puppies were still tucked into the crescent of my arm, and I watched as my father squatted low, brushing aside the deadened leaves.  He began digging until he was able to slide the box deep into the earth.   He looked up at me, staring into my stubborn eyes, and reached out his two mud streaked hands.  

We shaped two little pebble crosses over the wet circle of soil, and we sat together, side by side amongst the trees until the sky lightened to milk between the black branches.  

I remember many things about that morning. But nothing over powers sitting with my father in the silence as the sky turned.  I have wondered since what would have happened had the miracle occurred?  I'm sure the story would have been told many more times, and yet I see another miracle, an act of love that might be even greater. My father coming out to help me put away what death had taken. Perhaps in faith the greatest leap of all is to  simply trust your Father.To let Him lead you out into the woods to bury what is gone, and to sit with Him, head against His chest until the light comes.

 He knelt in the cold of winter and dug with His bare hands a hole and  covered it over again.  His gentleness moved me to bend and place what had passed into the box. He knew it was time to bury that we might go and see what is living. Then He led me into the house and we sat, letting the heat thaw our bodies and witnessed the new life before us. 

Collecting Coins.

                                                                                                                          

God is good. If this is all that i know, is it enough?  Are these the words that will not only sustain me, but  give life and joy abundant?  And what of the time it takes, the time for it to sink in and become reality?  I do not understand God, not even a little. I see what I think is good, what I think is peace and right, and yet it seems so often not an option, not in His plan. What do I do with this, but again believe that He is good? He is good. He is good. He is good. I whisper this every moment that my heart and mind are bleeding. The words becoming a cloth to press against the wound. This is the hard thankfulness. the kind that I want to run from, and I would, except I know that there is no where to run that my heart will not follow. Perhaps God makes it hard to believe that I might know faith. Faith that what He says is indeed true. That my faith is in the Faithful alone.


A dear friend of mine lost her baby when she was just weeks from delivery.   I wrote her a letter and in it said this…"Why would this happen to those that have put such trust in you Lord?  And I do not know these answers. All I know is that from everything, through joy and sadness God whispers.  He tugs at us to continue believing no matter how deep the gash.  And when we believe in those moments, when our hearts are split open, bleeding all over every thing we once found valuable, deeming all else worthless, I do know this:  Cleaving to Him here seals our hearts forever to the Father.  There is no stronger bond that can be formed between you and the Lord. To trust completely, without even an ounce of understanding, and knowing there may never be an answer to why." He is good. He is good.  When mothers bury their beautiful, perfect babies, when love is lost and when all we see is the death, He is good. What do I do with the days that breathing seems the challenge?  When I think of calendars  and they bring a sense of panic, to think that I might have to continue existing inside each blank numbered square?  Whisper again, He is good. He is good.  It is the pain that binds me to Him.  His needle that sews my spirit to His is sharp and pierces through me, separating my own desires, my own dreams from myself until, in hope I pray I become knitted to Him. He is good. He is good,  a guttural moan in the night of my journey, a mantra that promises the glory of morning.  The Glory of light that blots out the darkness.  And the promise of joy immeasurable.

The path of His goodness is a dark and steep trail, and often I feel I am climbing blindly through, learning to grasp to the roots, jousting myself ever upwards with mere faith that I will climb to the top to witness the dawn. Each step is a labour but I must believe that the labour is good and the harvest will be plentiful beyond my understanding.

"No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.  Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Therefore strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. Make level the paths for your feet so that the lame may not be disabled but rather healed."  Hebrews 12:11

I sat outside a coffee shop in the rain tonight. The hopelessness of my circumstance dampened me deeper than the cold splatter of water on my shoulders. A woman walked out from the alley, asking for money to catch the bus. I had none to give her but she thanked me regardless and walked to the next group of stragglers. From a few people she collected change until she had enough.  I watched her walk away, sinking into the darkness and harsh January rain.  And then when I thought her gone, I heard her shout from the sidewalk somewhere far in the distance. "Thank YOU Lord! You gave me what I needed. Thank you Lord."    As I stood there listening to her yell out to no one but God and the storm,  I realized I needed change too. A change of perspective, a change in my vision, that I might walk the dark wet streets, thankful that I have collected just enough for the ride to where I need to go. And though my chest still heaved with the gravity of my sorrow, I pushed out enough breath to whisper yet again…He is good. He is good. And here is faith…that each time I whisper, hands open, that He is Good instead of dwelling on why I think He might not be, I feel the weight of another coin. A tiny token of change to take me there. 

Inheritance.

                                                                                                                          Days before you came, 2010


I live in a city that has not fully developed into a total urban area.  There are small clusters of woods speckled throughout.  Often times I will be driving home late in the evening and suddenly deer or other creatures dart out from trees and streak across my path, confused to find themselves suddenly on hard asphalt, blinded in my headlights. I am always saddened by their existence, trapped in ever shrinking pockets of safety. These wooded retreats are too small and insufficient for them to thrive. They are imprisoned inside small forest islands, surrounded by an ocean of man and all our deathly creation.

I am nothing but one of these.  From the very moment I wrestled my way out of the mother bed I grew in, pushing past the cloth of her own flesh that formed me and my eyes blinked and my skin was touched by air and light, I was a creature destined to live as such.  Aren't we all?  Is this not the cruelty of sin? As now a mother myself I look at my innocent children and I know without any doubt that they too are just as I am. Since the teeth of our oldest ancestors sunk into the knowledge that the garden too was just a tiny island, we have been trapped within a space too small for the bodies in which we were created.

 And yet, as all good stories go, there was hope. A seed was planted in a  virgin woman and it grew into a man. Because He was fully man, He too was given to this world in which the frame of our bodies holds the only promise for safety and joy.  Yet He overcame the world, the trap, the perimeters of damnation. His life carved out a path to grace, and we have been invited to the feast of His sacrifice, to live somewhere outside the curse. His death gave us a new heart, and it is this new heart that is our promise. When we choose to submit it to God, our soul garden has the ability to stretch endlessly outward.  He pulls at the corners and propels the doughy ball of our spirit in His giant god hands. He rolls it out, and it spreads across the broken landscape.

The greatest challenge in this "real estate" war, the constant staking out of the ground that is our inheritance is submitting ourselves back to the creator.  To have true relationship with God, I must pursue Him without the hope of receiving a single thing, other than the extending of my own spirit temple.  Beyond even this, to be willing to seek Him out knowing the probability that it is in His plan to remove  every bit of the strongholds I have created for myself.  I have called upon God for many things. I have cried aloud, but if I am honest, each of these prayers have been in hopes to find ways to reach what I have simply created in my own mind. What I see as home.  Have I truly been willing to leave these tiny wooded prisons and seek the great and unknown forests, the uncharted God lands that I know nothing of?

The habit of creating my own dwelling is the very way that I allow myself to be robbed from the power of His joy.  I can only submit myself again and again, letting God's hand stretch my soul ever outward, so that just as Jesus spoke as  He went to His own death I might be able to say..."the ruler of this world cometh, but he has nothing in me" (Jn 14:30)  When I become broken to my own will, I am fully accessible to the Lord alone, and finally able to see the eternal spaces in which I might call home.


The painting below was completed a couple of years ago. It was created during a time of great turmoil and sadness in my life.  It was entitled, "Together, Alone."  I have often wondered, though I wrote the title, why I had chosen it.  It came to me as I witnessed these fearful, trapped animals bound across the pavement, searching for a place they were created for, but have never found . I have seen myself in their struggle, and I know that there is a greater place to which we are called.  There is a home within, and for me to find it, I may be stripped to nothing, but I am willing that I might be there with Him, never alone.

                                                                                                                    Together, Alone   2010

The Beauty of What Remains.

"The man who renounces himself, comes to himself." Emerson

     

    If we choose for ourselves to be open to marvel within the mere day to day drone, then how much more might we be enlightened by the rare blasts of furious light, seldom caught spaces in which we unmistakably stare directly into the face of God? The delicate occasions, the distant whisper, the slow growing and shrinking of light and shadow...these are the moments to prepare our sight for the brief flashes of blazed wonder.   

      More often than not, these small miracles pass us by without notice, a slight movement in our peripheral that we habitually ignore. As I have begun this experiment of keeping the eyes within open, I am finding the voice and instruction of God everywhere.  Each rustle of leaves in my spirit that I choose to recognize are in fact startling clues to look upward. And without fail, with my gaze lifted I will find extraordinary glimpses of the tree of life.   

     

     

       Painting, being my trade does not always exclude me from these mundane daily rhythms.  Though in essence it is a creative job, there are still deadlines and to do lists that seem unending.  Often times I am obligated to repeat a particular painting method time and again, and the assignments can become as prosaic as any other form of work .  

      If it were not for the recent opening of the eyes in my chest, the ones that recognize the insides of things, rather than the outer arenas of shape and color, I would have once again passed over this secret.  There, right there, in a process I have performed on countless occasions, I caught a brief look, a glimmering speck of God. A piece of His hair perhaps, or a slight movement of His hand.... and I was astonished to realize just how well He breaths through everything.  

      The process is begun like any other. Thick coats of paint are placed on the chosen surface, creating a completed background.  At this juncture, the next natural step would be to continue building color and shape, forming through additional layers of medium a final product.  This is where I take a different route.  Instead, after the foundation is complete mineral spirits are then poured over the painting in a desired shape and composition. The thinner essentially eats through the pigments, congealing into what looks like mud on the surface. Then I wait, and slowly,  with a rag, wipe away the filthy mire to reveal the image waiting beneath.  

    Oh God!  I see! I see you there, rising out of the wet layers, revealing who you are to me, and I want to taste this revelation.  I want to hold it in my dirty, paint doused hands. I want to eat this morsel of truth. How often I have smothered your voice by choosing to stack these blankets of self, never stopping to hear your plea to simply remove.    

    There is so much to squander in my excess. And I do not mean objects and purchases, though they too can become dense coverings, reshaping our identities. What I am speaking of are the intangible additions, the portions of self we create to communicate who we are.  How often I camouflage my soul with shrouds I think others might find attractive, or wrap myself in choices that I believe will make me complete.  How my words alone are deadly brushes, painting images that cover the God within. 

     And yet He still sees me as His father sees me.  Which is the most romantic of all notions, as it is by the very emptying of His own life that He might behold me as spotless and clean. He drained His  body of breath that it may fill up in splendor, the most beautiful painting ever known.  The wiping away of His heartbeat was the only saving grace I might have to live.  How muddy it appeared to those that were there to witness it. His friends, His own mother watched and wondered, wept as the sky turned into coal and death over took Him.  And they waited.  They waited, they doubted, and they lay, surrounded by the dark filth of the unknown.  But then death was obliterated and  He rose to the fullness of every prophecy and was glorified. Yet still I am afraid, still I wrestle against consenting to let His spirit pour over the places inside of me He has asked me to remove.  

     I have begun to see, and with that I have found that the way I have seen is my very problem. In fear of trusting Him I continuously build layer after layer, thinking I might be finding truth.  I take His brush into my own grasp and blindly splatter paint over His plans.  "Plans to proper me and not to harm me, plans to give me hope and a future!" (Jeremiah 29:11)  Are my own agendas better than this? How could they be? And so, today my hope is this..... that I may find the courage to grab hold of this love, the hem of His garment dangling out before me, and with it wipe clear the glass I have fogged, that I might see the glory that waits beyond.  

    It is  His great affection that woos me to kneel, to offer up the hands I have used to build my own towers. I will lie down with the hope that He might tear them away. And when the dust settles, I know, I trust that I will witness the God soaked beauty of what remains.  

This Is Grace.

   

 A fraction of a second and a spill can cost you a months income.  A mere moment I did not pay attention and the wine was splashing over the entire face of my keyboard. I could almost hear the belly of my computer drowning in a crimson bath, soldiers being sucked beneath the closing Red Sea.  I swabbed up the fuchsia puddle and buried my laptop in a huge tub of rice, hoping, praying that this white grained grave would not be its last resting place.
     I lay in bed that night, replaying the moment over and over. If only one frame of my day had been different, a second delayed or pushed forward. One decision holding a different weight or time frame and this never would have happened. Self hatred and anger pulled its ugly mask over me as I drifted off to sleep.  My only hope was in my desperate prayers to God that I would wake up to a functioning computer, merely sleeping in its rice bed.  I almost felt it God's obligation. He saw that it was an accident. He has seen how difficult my life has been these past two years. Surely He would have a little grace on my circumstance. Mend what would be so easy for Him to mend.  I dreamt of broken wine glasses and the inside of grapes, red and flowing, seeping into the floor boards.
         The computer did not even do as much as heave a final breath. I pressed the on button over and over, a gentle push turning into an ugly jab, ending in what made the knob look a bit more like a punching bag than a power source.  I felt the anger burning in my chest climb its little ladders into my eyes, escaping  down my cheeks. Of course God wouldn't fix this.  Why on earth would I begin believing that now??   After all the broken experiences of my life, the split second calamities  that have bled all over everything else in my heart, why did I believe that God would fix this damned computer?  And greater than the computer, were all the memories now locked forever behind its black, lifeless screen.  Every photo of my children's precious lives imprisoned by my one slip of hand.  Even more guilt filled me as I thought of the many times I had written on to do lists reminders to back up the files on my computer.  The sudden realization of the worth  of these visual reminders of my life, my children's lives far out weighed the thought of hassle or strained finances.  My pleading for God to fix the computer changed. I did not care about the cost, I cared about the images that would be lost forever. "Lord will you salvage the heart of this machinery. It's true worth in my life, no matter the price?"
       The computer itself was doomed.  The technician opened the back, took one look and formally closed the coffin.  He asked me to wait up front while he checked to see if perhaps the hard drive had somehow dodged the flood, though he seemed doubtful.  The front of the Apple store suddenly felt like a waiting room in a hospital.  As I waited I prayed for grace.  The cost of replacing the computer was so distant to me now.  I felt I could almost laugh at this little annoyance, made into an insignificant bump by the grave reality that I might never see the fresh bud of my child's new lips, a tiny flower peeping out from white lenin cloth.  I might never again be able to pull my eldest son in my lap and flip through the photographs of his first birthday parties, retelling the stories of each one. Hearing his laughter fold around me,   his white hair tucked beneath my chin. Every tiny shell collected and stored, waiting to be reexamined and adored by the ones that found them. These were the treasures that held any worth.  This was the source of fervor in my renewed prayer.
      And then, as I waited I was compelled to ask myself a question. Perhaps the loss of things is the only way that the Lord can communicate to us what our hearts already know but cannot see?  Could it be that it is by His very grace that He breaks the glass around our hearts, and forces us to give way to these spills? That His own blood pouring over us might drown out what is not important? Washing away the insignificant so that we may finally know what is? Are these lessons worth it? Worth the hassle and the expense that we might be filled with true thanksgiving and fervor to keep alive the deep abundance of the soul?
      The darker parts of my mind, the prideful greedy sects that roam the streets looking for someone to blame would like to say no.  Can I not be enlightened without paying this cost? Why must I lose time and money, experience  heartache and misfortune? The braver mercenaries of my thoughts know this answer.  They march around the walls of doubt and wait for these very signals to attack the enemy stragglers. To take over the cities of my heart, and claim them for the Father.  My clenched fists, holding fast to meaningless objects are freed by loss. I can open up my hands and receive from Him a taste of that which holds true importance. It could not come any other way. I have had these gifts all along, but could not see them.  I knew not love until I thought it taken away.
        All is for grace. Every instant, both exciting and tormenting is existing that we might empty out our cups and make room for the only thing that will ever fill us up.  This is true for every moment. It always has been and always will. He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. All I can do is give thanks when I am awake enough to see why, to not let it pass me over by choosing to see the experience alone.  And in those precious occasions that we can see, truly see, we are for a moment tasting lasting joy.  And we know it is true, because it is against every natural instinct or reaction that we have previously bowed low to.
 
      "How we look determines how we live...if we live." -ann voskamp


    The computer technician made his way through the shoppers, and I braced myself for his verdict.  "Good news!" he shouted over the tops of their heads. In his hand was the only remaining piece of my computer.  Everything else had been deemed useless, but the small square metal in his hand was now all that mattered.  "Everything else is lost, but your hard drive was left untouched. It is in perfect condition and can be switched over to your new computer without a problem."
         My hand had slipped and I had watched in slow motion as the glass tipped, opening up its mouth and swallowing everything I owned.  I had tried to clean it up and dry it out, but I was surrounded by death. Only what was dying was never my true life source.  It was by his grace that the encasing be ripped away and for a moment I might hear the good news. For the first time I held the insides of my heart in my hand and it was still alive, untouched by the flood that had wiped away the landscapes that had hidden it. To see it there, outside of its secret places, to be able to hold the unseen, the truly important was worth every penny I had.  And to know that it was unharmed, untouched by my own accidents and slips. The very spill I had cursed myself and God for was instead the opportunity that allowed this moment to occur. This is grace. This is love.  This is God.
        My hard drive was converted over into a new laptop. A new home. Every time I see my computer, something I started out imagining to be a curse is now a priceless reminder. I am once again filled with the hope of joy and all things made new.

"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh." -Ezekial 36:26