Altar

I am ready for sweet, summer days; for sunshine on my skin, feeling weightless in water, and hiking epiphanies... wisdom that only the woods can offer. My soul has grown weary of hunching in the cold, and is reaching out for change and growth and beauty I have yet to grasp. I am ready to let go of dead winter and see what comes, alive and new with spring. I am ready to be new again, too.

This week I discovered a pair of alternative folk musicians called You and Yourn, and they have changed me. I bought their album, and I have listened to it on repeat daily since it was purchased. I can't get enough... like a new relationship, when there is so much to discover that there never seems to be an adequate amount of time in the day. I am committing lyrics and melodies to memory, and singing along. It is by no mistake that I found them in this season. They are helping me let go.

I've found myself in a rather desolate place lately. It can probably be labeled depression, and I can probably get some pills to make it seem less enormous, but there are no cures for the underlying questions. They are meant to be asked.

I don't know that I even want to spell it all out. But I am putting my desires on an altar and watching them go up in smoke, because I found something better than even financial security, travel, marriage, a writing career... all of the things I thought I wanted so deeply.

Like Abraham with Isaac, I don't know what the outcome will be, or if I will be asked to sacrifice the things most precious to me. But I discovered that I already hold the keys to an unexplored kingdom and I can't be content with just these things anymore. Someone cracked open a door I didn't know was there, and the world I am in is now pale in comparison to the light spilling through...

I cannot go back. But all the stuff I've brought with me can't go where I am going. So I leave it here in embers and turn and face whatever is just beyond that door...

Faith is a radiant and terrifying adventure. But once it has gotten ahold of you, ordinary no longer satisfies. I want more.