.: the one on the outside :.

I should have guessed that I would never get to be one of you guys. I should have known that I would never belong. Friends far too attached to let anyone else in. I thought that I knew you. I thought that our friendship meant that I was one too. But I was wrong all along. At least extend me the courtesy of letting me in on the secret, the reason for why I remain outside. Why can't I be in the inner circle? It kills me to know that what is going on goes on without me. Do you not know what I have to offer? Do you not know who I am? The beauty that is created amidst you all will never be revealed to someone such as me. You make your mark through the cutting edge, failing to claim the underlying exclusivity. Do you not remember what it felt like to be left behind as well? You give each other names. Jokes are fashioned as passwords through which you grant each other access. I could sleep much better knowing that my day will soon come. Instead I am haunted by never being known by any of you. And maybe I am in fact better missing from it all. Maybe you are right in saying that it is out of your hands and out of control. But I hope that you realize that you have omitted the one thing that could have given you new life. Your best laid plans are a mess because you did not include me in them. Or so I so desperately wish! I could use a friend like you in times like these. So hurry up or you too might be replaced. Still I have a place in my heart for you. But it is a hope that is quickly fading, for I am a master at teaching myself to no longer desire what I cannot have. Still I cannot believe that I let you do this to me, even in these years far removed from the beginning. There was a time when I wished that you were mine and I was yours. All the same, I think I can finally stay that I am glad that you failed to pick me. So I will never the invitations that I have been starving myself for. I won't crawl up those steps back to the place that we once shared. But I am not content to be find pleasure in your recent sadness. I cannot let myself get away with pushing you back into the silence and begging for your own dismissal. But I must admit, I find it difficult to see how you convinced yourself that you treated me like any other. I thought our alliance was one struck in the darkest of times. Now all you have done is left me feeling dirty. And in spite of what once was, as soon as the light came back around, you made your way back into life... and away from someone who was close not too long ago.

.: a lull in the midst of the new :.

So often it seems that we live for every subsequent moment of amusement. We live for every chance to be fascinated with something that captures our attention and sends us off in a tirade. But once it all catches up to us and there is nothing new to be enthralled by, we sink into the shadows and the spotlight moves away from our shoulders. We love to have something, sometimes anything, to build a life around. The common and familiar is fine for everyone else, but we desperately crave for that new thing that will take our breath away. We need something fresh and innovative to use as a basis for furthering our own kingdom. Our eyes are caught by even the slightest glimpses of glitter, something that informs us that we must have it. We internally beg for new words to move forward on, often in a direction unlike all others. And something within us grows silent and eerie. But who of us can wrestle wisely with such maddening silence? Something within us refuses to settle for what we have already seen and heard. We figure that there must be some new formula, something that gives us an original principal for a more authentic way of life. Authors earn their temporary notoriety by capturing it within their best seller. Actors win their awards by performing in a way that touches upon it as well. And day-by-day, we grow more numb to what we have already experienced. What is it within our hearts that needs that novel element to continually appear before us? Why are we not comfortable with old lessons and the rehearsing of wisdom? No question, it is there! And it rules our lives in such a way that we pour out our riches, energy, and attention in the hopes of finding it before everyone else. We yearn to be the ones informing the masses rather than being one of the later informed. Then we preach it in our loudest voices, we practice it in our workplace, we frame it and nail it to our walls, and we make it our newest rule to abide by and defend. We constantly need something to tell us each morning that this life is actually worth living. And it needs to be here and it needs to be now. Our world tells us that we cannot afford to wait. So we rush in, and thus rush right past what the Father has been longing to tell us. I guess we just feel that His words of life can wait one more day, and that there are far more important details to hammer out in the hours given to us. But then we are given all sorts of choices, and we decline to really pick any one of them. We want to truly be satisfied, to find what we have been, and always will be, looking for. Unfortunately we repeatedly sell out on our real hopes and we let ourselves land once again in that place of disappointing resignation. We settle for the things that only fill our sails for moments at a time, knowing full well that something deeper still awaits us. Yet we cannot ever teach ourselves to create the kind of space in which He might confront and console our bleeding hearts. But would we truly be content if His only words were that everything is fine, that there is no problem, and His feelings towards us are only thoughts of joy. Maybe we are convinced that there must be some sort of problem, and that it is buried deep within us. So we form such habits of digging away at what we can only assume needs to be brought out into the open. Regrettable far into the future, we make these decisions on our own terms, devoted to the dying efforts of our own feeble strength.

.: a moment in time :.

I was alone there. Though surrounded by many, I was alone there. Just to go back there in my heart brings deeply-rooted tears of sorrow to my eyes. No one was coming for me there. I was left to go it by myself. Company was just outside my door. And people loved me there. But at the end of the day, I was alone there - completely alone. Some of those months should have been my brightest. But I don't know if they truly were. There were ways of entertaining myself, methods of making myself laugh. But these times were soon drowned out by the rain that fell outside, the drops on windows that mimicked the ones running down the face of my soul. Even the snow that came down at times seemed to surrounded me so that I could not go anywhere; they seemed to muffle the cries within me. I needed You there. I know You were there. But, Father... FATHER! I was alone! Those people that were at times closer than my own family only served in temporarily calming my fears and subduing my sadness. But then the time came... and even the ones that I held close were pulled away from me. If I could have pulled it off, I would have brought them into this new(er) life that stands before me now. Those days were precious. Those were the days in which You so often reminded me of how much You loved me. But I was alone there. Nights of gazing through the cracks in my blinds, being mesmerized by the night and distant stars that engulfed my world, are forever captured in my head. That... and aloneless - I cannot escape that fact! I must have been so deeply wounded that even now I weep. So distant from the moment of betrayal. Will anyone ever know me once again? How long must this go on? Moments pass when I swear that I could know my heart no better than this. But now an unguarded moment and a repetitious melody stir me in a way that I had almost forgotten. Once more, I throw together the elements of a recipe called "that time of life", and the flood gates of my heart and mind are ripped open. Yet I do not get those days back, do I? Maybe I don't want them. I am sure that I could convince myself for moments at a time. And maybe I can convince myself that far better days are ahead. I never want to hurt like this ever again. Can I not find a deeper sense than just the pain of certain memories, paired with the cries of wanting to return? Why would I want to go back? These days were never meant to last. You knew yourself that they were only in your life for a time. Yet the meals, the warmth of a fire, the promise of companionship whenever one so desired, the passion of a shared adventure - that is why you want to go back! Yes, they knew you! But you can never go back. My son, new days await you. Hold on, take heart, and do not lose faith. Embrace those songs that stir within your heart - do not push them away! For those memories will serve to draw you further on. They will carry you in a way that few can comprehend. And understand that I cared for you all along the way. And I will continue to carry you, even in days such as these. You are My Son, the joy of my creation. I know you are one of My own. Is there anything deeper than that? Now... live! Do what I created you for. Find your deepest joy in fulfilling your design. But, no... never forget. For those days were forging in you my plan from the beginning. In every moment, in every area of your life, my hands were fashioning something amazing - something beyond the lights and the sounds, the feel and the touch, the laughter and the applause you try to take hold of even now.