Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: WALL (02/17/22)
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TITLE: My Window | Previous Challenge Entry
By Laurie Bahlke
02/21/22 -
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I miss waking every morning with a song of faith repeating through my mind. I begin to cry and say to myself, as I do every day, “It’s time to get up and get going.”
“A few more minutes,” I tell myself, “And then I will be ready.” Twenty minutes later, I wake again to the sound of my own snoring. Frustrated, I mumble, “Now, I will be behind.” The things I need to do like paperwork, phone calls, scheduling, will now be done at the end of the day and well into the late afternoon hours after I have seen my scheduled patients. I pray for strength, to get up, get going, and yet.
I gaze out the window and confess, “I am sorry Lord, but I don’t know how to get out of this emotional, sometimes overwhelming, and oh, so heavy space. I want the song back. I want the gift that you laid on my heart each night before I fell asleep and again when I woke. I desire to give You all of this, to surrender it to you, and yet, I falter in the depths of sorrow, anxiety, and uncertainty. You have always been with me, but I need to draw closer.”
As I take a pause to breathe, my favorite faith song comes to mind. I push the covers back, sit on the edge of the bed and step out. I look around my bedroom with its light, mint green walls, the door that leads out, and then to the window framed in white, sheer curtains letting bits of the dawning day in. I look out and see the birds flitting about the seed spilled on the ground. The land stretches out before my eyes, both forest trees and the ground are dusted with snow. The sky is a mix of soft gray with a tint of blue as if saying, “Soon it will be warm again.” This was my routine in the past, to rise with a song and look out the window before anything else. That time now feels like long ago. I take a deep breath and slowly exhale. It is time to look out my window again, it is time to wake with a song again, it is time to look to the light before I look to the walls.
Friends, we all hurt. Waking up and moving forward each day is hard. We love and we lose. We work to heal but we can also fall ill ourselves, mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. If I were with you, wherever you are right now, I would wrap my arms around you and say, “It’s time to look away from the walls and to the light. Find your song and let it fill you. Take a walk with the Lord and draw close. Where walls once held you, windows will open and reveal something that will comfort, heal or restore you.”
“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present, nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God, that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38-39 (NIV).
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Your words did that to me.
After my husband died.
The Lord restored the joy and wonder after a time- as you've indicated.
At one stage I was holding my breath hoping you'd show a little more than telling what you were doing - so I am not putting it in as red ink- I think my reaction was only so I could place myself in a story and not into a real memory.
That's arresting writing.