Ain't Seen the Sun Shine

"I hear that train acomin'. It's rollin' 'round the bend. And I ain't seen the sun shine since... I don't know when."
I'm stuck in my own prison, and time keeps draggin' by.
The train, well I am pretty sure it ran me over, caught me by the bootstrap, and continues to drag me down the line.
Kicking and screaming.
Fighting for a grip.
The train is just too strong.
Railroad ties rip my flesh as I am flailing.
am broken.
am bleeding.
Gravel embedded in my tissue.
My eyelids scrape and catch as I try to flush out the sand and grit with my tears.
Fingertips and palms raw as I feel for a stronghold.
my chest throbs from the weeping, wheezing, and longing for relief.
My heart beats irregularly to the rhythm of the clickety clank.
It would be so easy to just give up hope... If I didn't know that Hope existed.
LL

Consuming dark vortex.

There is a constant swirling vortex.
It is varying shades of dark.
The base color varies from season to season, but the darkness remains.
Currently, my vortex is blue.
A color of longing, loneliness, the vast unknown... But it is swirling with whisping strands of darkness.
Strands of pitch black, complete emptiness, entangle themselves in my vortex of emotions.
This vortex, it consumes... It draws in... It funnels all it catches into me.
Inward.
Only inward.
There is no filter, no selectiveness.
My selfish, fleshly desires, stirred up this tornadic need for outward approval, affection, affirmation, acceptance.
Yet the needs of my heart are unmet.
The world cannot provide what my heart longs for.
The vortex only serves to mangle the relationships it becomes intertwined with.
It pulls at the fibers of those relationships, slowly fraying each.
The frays soon become holes.
Empty places where once there were woven strands of beauty and balance.
As I reflect on the blues, blacks, navies and grays swirling before me, I picture the web of a waiting funnel web spider.
She waits in earnest at the base of her funnel, waiting for sustenance to entrap itself in her web.
After devouring the nourishing contents, she disposes of the unconsumed, unusable bits.
At times I feel this way.
At times I allow my primal needs to lead me and guide me, and yet every time... Every time... I end up with these unconsumed bits.
IF my vortex were taking in the right sustenance, The Lord God, then there would be no waste.
No unconsumed bits.
Because what God gives is pure, there is no need for refining, for filtering, for picking around rotten spots.
His gifts are satisfying.
His sustenance meets our needs. Every time.
Every time.
And when His fibers become entangled in my vortex, He does not unravel, rather He weaves us together.
His supply of golden, shining strands of Light are never ceasing.
These golden strands reflect his Light amidst my vortex and the darkness fades and soon disappears.
The blue I once thought seemed lonesome, vast, longing... Now seems to shift into an array of yellows, oranges, reds.
Like a fiery sunset, a swirling of rich, vibrant, glowing colors and light.
The funnel that once tapered in towards my heart, now seems to lessen in its inwards sloping.
It seems to draw in, as well as draw out.
This vortex draws out the dross, the waste, the filth via those Golden Strands.
My needs are no longer unmet.
The vortex slows.
It seems to slow to a calming sculpture of intertwining vines rather than strands.
The Vines that glimmer in my vortex are Vines of Truth.
True Acceptance, True Affirmation, True Affection, True All.
It is Love.
It is True Love.
Love I have been looking for in other places, other ways, in false idols.
These false idols have fed me just enough to keep me hungry.
Just enough to keep me alive, yet longing.
These false idols give me bursts of temporary relief... But they are wavering.
God's Love, God's Provision, God's Relief is constant, there is no wavering in Him...
So why do I turn from Him?
Why do I end up with the inertia of a looming vortex before me?

I think of my inconsistency, my motives, my selfishness, my desire for instant gratification, my desire for control.
All my inward thinking.
All my self righteousness.

"Who among you is wise and understanding? Let him show by his good behavior his deeds in the gentleness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth. This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but which is earthly, natural, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder (vortexes of mass destruction) and every evil thing. But the wisdom from above is first pure, the peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy. And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace." James 3:13-18


So while a vortex still swirls before my selfish heart... I can see the Golden Vines growing.
IF I focus on those Vines, they will soon become far reaching vines that will choke out the weeds, the strands that entangle my fallen heart.
Oh let it be so, Lord.
That Your peace would be sown in my heart.
That Your righteousness prevail.
Oh let it be so.
In Jesus' holy and perfect name,
Amen.
LL