Streams of Comfort

There’s another aspect to being salt that I never considered. The Bible calls us to season our speech with salt, but the kind of grace and wisdom we need to do that comes from God. It also comes from self-reflection. Meditating on the scriptures while you look at your own shortcomings. For the longest time, I struggled with apathy. Ironic that I always prided myself in being empathetic and friendly. Until one day, I realized that I was lying to myself and others. I had developed a dark place in my heart that sucked out all the light. My words were not seasoned with salt, but apathy. Thankfully, we have a Father that sees us where we are at. And has mercy and grace for our shortcomings. We can come to him as we are because his work in us is not yet complete. But it will be. There’s hope in Jesus.

While the landscape inside me rages,
I’ll call Jesus.
Unlike the disciples, I have no boat that rocks back and forth.
No ocean to fall into or walk on.
My landscape is a forest of evergreens so green there may be envy in the canopy.
With rivers of water so salty they may be my tears.
Let’s not forget the beasts that dwell within.
The monsters like hatred, anger, and fear.
That take the forms of panthers, hippos, and snakes.
As I wander through the valleys of my discomfort and despair,
I don’t weep.
There are bushes of hope and seeds of love.
Constantly being planted by the visitors to my soul.
The lightest breeze smells sweet and reminds me of better times.
Until I reach a cave, so dark I forget light existed.
Deep within the cavern echoes self-hatred and lust.
For power, for self-righteousness, for pride, for pleasure.
At the end of the cave, sleeps the scariest monster of all.
Apathy takes the shape of me.
I lie in an eternal, uncaring slumber.
Surrounded by darkness and shrouded in the lies I tell myself to get by.
Breathing the heavy air of self-preservation.
To continue sleeping.
It’s too much sometimes. The easy deception that looks like peace and calm.
I’m sleeping but there are no dreams.
Only nothingness.
I know if I stay I’ll become nothing too.
So instead, I see a firefly on the floor.
Dying perhaps.
I lift it and in my palm it awakens.
And so does its minuscule light.
It starts flying away and I follow it.
Back to the light.
To where the air is free.
There are birds that represent my courage.
Flowers that bloom with God’s grace for me.
All sustained by the One who created this landscape.
Who breathes mercy and love.
The sun that is my salvation.
Everlasting.
Alice R, 7/11/24