Travelogue, Page 1

   What if there was something more? Something beyond life-as-usual, which isn’t really life at all? Wouldn’t you long for it? Wouldn’t you throw off everything holding you back and run to embrace it? Wouldn’t I? Despite the fear, the cost, the constraints of convention?

   I have lived a silent life, a hidden life, a safe and controlled and nearly risk-free life for as long as I’ve known myself, and probably before. I am the prolific author of dozens of private journals, pages of academic essays, and a wealth of aborted writing projects. Writing, for me, has been a release, an outlet. I am my truest self on the page; it is there – and so far, only there – that I am free to discover and live out the person I am meant to be. Yet, until now, there has only been One entrusted with these fears and fancies that flow, unedited, from the springs deep within. Between me and the rest of the world lies a thin sheet of ice. I can see and be seen, while remaining separate. And, as I’ve long convinced myself, protected.

But ice, even at the height of its frigid beauty,                                                                        

doesn’t nurture life – it destroys. 

   
It seems such a small thing, for one who has secretly nurtured grandiose dreams of changing the world, to simply start a blog. And yet, for me, it is so much more than that. This is to be a great experiment in trusting the God I love, the One who has given all to me. Writing, I have recognized, is one of His sacred gifts in my life. With this blog, in this simple exercise of pondering and writing and sharing, I choose to give that gift back to Him, by giving it to the world. What He does with it – large or small – is up to Him; I will delight in the joyful rewards of obedience.


   To begin the experiment, then, here is an excerpt from my journal of prayers …


***


   God, You have given me a gift of life. It bubbles up in gushes and trickles, yet finding no outlet, it threatens to stagnate, evaporate. But the sheet of ice is cracking, Lord, I feel it. The ice is weakening, melting – it will soon give way – and then the life will burst forth, with nothing to contain it.

   God, I feel it – the life is pulsing inside me. It quickens and presses and stirs. My very limbs quiver, aching to run, to leap, to dance. Energy and passion and vitality stir, longing for release, pushing for change, for transformation, calling for hope and healing that is a very form of life from the dead. 


   Father, You are real, You are true. You are love and life, health and hope and happiness. Nothing lives beyond You, God. And so many of us live a half-life, because we have not fully realized or embraced You.


   Oh, God! That hope is there, I know it – that hope is You. But somehow, so many of us have gotten lost in the looking – we haven’t really seen. Open our eyes, God. Open our spirits to You. Release the bands of ice and iron that entrap and entomb us, constricting the very flow of our hearts’ blood. Release us that our hearts may expand, that our lungs may draw a full, fresh breath – maybe the first one of our lives. 


   God, Your light, Your life, Your living water – Your very Son and Spirit are stirring within me. “Wake,” they whisper; “Wake!” they call. Arise, oh sleeper; wake from the dead, and Christ will shine on you!


   Yes, Lord! I wake. I live, I breathe, I rejoice. I blink my eyes to clear my vision, seeing as if for the first time. Your voice to my ear is sweet and precious, almost achingly so, and Your touch, wondrous beyond all I’ve ever known.


   I am Yours! My spirit cries. I am knowing, I am believing, I am trusting You like never before.


   Here begins a journey, Lord, a new adventure. My passport has arrived, and I am setting out to new lands, ground I’ve never traveled, sights I’ve never seen…


***


   This blog is not the journey; it is but the travelogue. It will reflect where I’ve been, describe where I am, illustrate where I hope to go. I hope it will inspire some to set out on similar journeys; others, to reflect on travels already in progress. Always, comments and questions from fellow travelers will be welcome, that we may gain insight, encouragement, correction, and strength along the Way.


   Blessings to you, my friends old and new, and as you go, keep looking up!

ice flower
Originally uploaded by lalla2006