Leaves

  I collect them all as they crunch beneath my fingers, brittle shrapnel from their edges falling softly at my feet. They were all so beautiful last year. Like pageant queens on display to the world waltzing down the cat-walk with dramatic flair. Their life was so short, cut coldly by the winter now approaching.

  “Why?” I beg of the leaves that lie dead and brittle-brown in my hands. Could they not see how grand it all was last year? How good we had it? How happy I was surrounded by their colors?

  But seasons change. That’s how it must be for that’s how it always was. And if it was not always that way, would we perhaps grow bored and tired of this old earth? If it failed to renew itself and redeem itself once again in our eyes?

  So seasons change and just like these leaves, friendships change too. And as you grasp them, clutch them, bring them close to your heart, they drift away on the wind, joining new territories, called away by the promising whisper that lies on the breeze.

  We must learn to move on. Just like the trees, we must accept the changes that constantly battle our bark. A lifetime of seasons is ahead and while few things remain constant, so many simply fall away and we cannot stop them.

  The winds of change whip around my face, brushing my cheeks with the promise that all is well. I take their word for it.  With one last lingering glance, I un-pry my fingers from their tight hold on the leaves in my hand. Tossing them into the air, I watch them swirl, tangoing together towards freedom.

  Some may come back to me, stay again for the season. I will welcome them whole-heartedly with open arms.

  But I smile as I remember that in another season there will be new leaves again. 

Prayer

Oh God, take my selfish heart. It wants so much evil and you want it to want so much good. It lusts for things it cannot have, forgets its blessings, turns from you and with a filthy mouth of forgetfulness wonders why it cannot have.

I want, I want, I want.

Without remembering all the gracious good gifts you poured upon me, I crave with a sick longing that can only be defined as cursed covetousness. 

I curse those who have more, disguising my words as jealous and envy when really I just feel hate.

Oh Lord, how is this the case? Am I not full of your spirit? Did you not inhabit my heart when I begged you, tears streaming down my cheeks, to come in?

Why, oh, why do I still hurt those I love with words of roughness and ill meaning. Sometimes it is not even what I planned to say but the sin slips skillfully out of my lips as if it had been crouching in the corner of my mouth simply waiting to spring.

I envy and I hurt and I hate and I want.

 Justify these things? I cannot at the end of the day. They are too real and too painful and my heart is too raw with regret as I remember, recall, refocus.

Forgive, oh, Father. These are the words that, as I bow before you on my knees, I must proclaim. For without your forgiveness dribbled upon my head as cleansing baptismal waters, I cannot – I will not -- ever live for you.

The more I discover about you, the more I see about myself. It is a sickening paradox, and yet the most wonderful thing I have ever encountered.

My old man shrivels in suffocation and shudders as he stutters that none of this is necessary and I could easily just drown my sorrows by burying them deep in my head.

But this cannot go on. I am near a breaking point. I am so so very sorry for sin that it’s driving me insane.

It is only with the glimpse of Christ’s welcoming arms that I keep pressing forward. Like Christian in Pilgrim’s Progress, having been freed of his burden, and yet with so many pitfalls and snares still to avoid.

I press on.

Hard though it may be.

Tears from my eyes,

Crying “Lord, forgive me.”