Good morning…
After waking from my second sleep, I savored again yesterday’s post One Terrifying Step. In the next moment, I happened upon the poem below, and God continued our conversation. Now I invite you into our dynamic discussion.
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FEAR by Khalil Gibran
It is said that before entering the sea
a river trembles with fear.
She looks back at the path she has traveled,
from the peaks of the mountains,
the long winding road crossing forests and villages.
And in front of her,
she sees an ocean so vast,
that to enter
there seems nothing more than to disappear forever.
But there is no other way.
The river can not go back.
Nobody can go back.
To go back is impossible in existence.
The river needs to take the risk
of entering the ocean
because only then will fear disappear,
because that’s where the river will know
it’s not about disappearing into the ocean,
but of becoming the ocean.
******
Nobody can go back. Recent high school and college graduates. Parents watching children leave the nest. Anybody living in an aging body. Newly married couples beginning life as one. Pets and people with terminal cancer. Those signing their divorce papers. Loved ones losing loved ones to addiction, dementia, Alzheimer’s. Spouses left on earth while their soul-mate is in heaven. Nobody can go back. Like the fear-filled river, we can reflect on the path we have traveled, but we can not go back.
And yet…we all are invited to take the risk of wading into the vast ocean sucking sand from beneath our toes. Fully immersing ourselves in the forward pull, only then will our fear disappear. Here, right now, might we truly trust that who we are and what we love, these are not disappearing? Instead, as we surrender ourselves to the power of God, we are expanding to become the ocean, forever and ever and evermore.
God’s love is meteoric, his loyalty astronomic, His purpose titanic, his verdicts oceanic. Yet in his largeness nothing gets lost; Not a man, not a mouse, slips through the cracks (Psalm 36:5-6, MSG).
…Sue…
P.S. Please be in prayer for our friend Bobbie who laid her husband to rest in a private graveside service with her family yesterday. Today, we will celebrate the life of Phil Larkins at Northside Church at 11:00 am. Phil’s obituary looks back on a faithful life well-lived. Now Phil has become the ocean.
