small-framed soul

teach me how to love this place. teach me how to say yes to your answering of my longings. open my eyes to the truth of you in those around me, and guide me forever in your arms.

there is a tension in this place. no matter where i go or what i do that deep, strange, and unyielding longing rises up in me. and it seems the only moments when it is still are the moments that my heart is deadened to what's around me and no longer cares to recognize what is good.

"'restless is our heart...'  the core of our being is relentlessly questioning, searching, longing. the very beating of the heart within my chest seems merely the echo of a restless pounding more deeply within me, a knocking on some unlocked door. it is not even clear to me: do i knock to get in, or do i knock to get out? but one thing is certain: restless is our heart."

"the heart that comes to rest in God rests in its own fathomless depth."
                      -Steindl-Rast

mother theresa told her sisters over and over to smile at the pain, smile what Jesus takes. he gives and takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord.
but i'm so damn restless in this ache.

nevertheless, i've started to smile. quite literally. that nameless ache and longing rises up in me like a great burning tidal wave originating somewhere deep in my spine. my breath catches, my eyes well up, and i know that even though everything in me wants to find a way to share this with another being because something this big and deep and wide and pervasive is too unwieldy in my small-framed soul, i lick my lips and find nothing on my tongue to share, no words to explain except "deep," no real communication save the growing exposure of the whites of my eyes. and in this somehow, someway a curiously small and contented smile slights it's way from my conscious will to those muscles at the corners of my mouth.

mona lisa, i know you. you're greeting your ache with a smile.

and what's truly revelatory about this isn't nearly as novel as revelations should be, but yet this smile might wield more power than anything i can dare to imagine. it is my mustard seed, my obedience, and my quaking weakness. and it is the uncannily kind response to my uncannily kind God. it is trust, beautifully innocent wonderful trust.

we are not alone. we are not abandoned. we are not lost. in you, oh God, in you.

we exist in the arms of God.