Don’t remember the prior things;
don’t ponder ancient history.
Look! I’m doing a new thing;
now it sprouts up; don’t you recognize it?
I’m making a way in the desert,
paths in the wilderness. (Isaiah 43:18-19)

I met someone recently who did not have it all together. For some time I had seen the edges of her life fray but now “it” was bursting through the seams. Depression was hitting her, wave after wave of inky blackness. It broke my heart that there was nothing I could do at that moment for her. Not because I was busy or doing my own thing but because I had no words to help. I did suggest we meet and I hope she turns up at the appointed time or maybe we will hook up and travel together. Words can be so strong at times that it is better to hold them in than to let them out. It was not the right time, we were within a throng of happy people. So I reached out and touched, prayed for her and then she was gone.

Last night I heard that God loves me, I had been hearing it all day. I heard it in the hugs of women, in the conversations of men and in the gratitude of children. I heard and was challenged by the words of a prayer, texted to me from the West of Ireland. I heard that God loves all.

This morning I listened to the testimony of Chryshtal, a young woman who has overcome the extremes of life to know she is the daughter of the King. I listened to her story of a desperately hurting small girl who was transformed into a godly confident young woman who spoke of the truth and beauty that was now in her life.

Yesterday I looked around a room full of women that had always known they were daughters of the King and I remembered in that moment a guy who told me people like that would never understand what we had been through or done. I can remember, even, then, just slowly nodding because back then I could not challenge things that did not sit well in my heart. “Some people glide through life like a fried egg on a Teflon sheet – nothing sticks to them.” That is what I used to think about these women, but I now know better. Inside those nice clothes are women who are broken. As time has gone on in our lives, they have shared their heartache, their quashed desires, the losses in their lives and the incidents that turned their faith upside down. They say things to me they cannot say at home and each meeting I have had with them, a new person comes forward out of their niceness to get raw and honest for a moment.

My friend is not stuck in the moment. If I had thought she was stuck I would have stopped time to be with her but I know she will in time tap back into the journey God has for her. I had a dark moment this week, it lasted more than twenty four hours and that is why the West of Ireland prayer pierced my soul. It was a very “How very dare you?” and it convicted me.

In the midst of this moment, today, I am loved by the King and I am his daughter, later I will need to straighten my crown and remember this truth. But this moment is full of praise and full of wonder.

You’ve got stuck in a moment
And you can’t get out of it

Don’t say that later will be better
Now you’re stuck in a moment
And you can’t get out of it

And if the night runs over
And if the day won’t last
And if our way should falter
Along the stony pass

“Stuck in a Moment,” by U2

I need an intervention.

I need surgery. There is something wrong, water cascades down my cheeks at the slightest thought. Today it was a rainbow, a small, tucked between two sets of clouds, sweet spectrum of delight. Where I stood my little finger was bigger as I held it up to measure. It was there.

Today it wasn’t just the rainbow. It was many things that I cannot write about. It was memories. It was present. It was future imperfect. Mother hen frustration as a fox slaughtered chicks. Deep rooted helplessness. And then the rainbow reminded me of a long ago binding agreement. And although I had been doing it all day, I prayed a new prayer. Standing in the sight of the variegated hues I asked for more. 

I need surgery to remove the dampness from my cheeks, my neck, salt stained my t-shirt. My eyes feel ever so puffed, distorted by this reviled, ridiculous inability to stop the waterfall.

I need a divine intervention, transcendent surgery of a broken heart.

I could do with some verbal articulation too but… One thing at a time