Years ago, I took the boys to see Ft. Griffin, one of those post-Civil War era frontier forts just northeast of Abilene. It must have been a very lonesome and miserable assignment in the late 1800’s. Bitterly cold winters. Unbearably hot summers. One of those places that certainly inspired the birth of the word, “godforsaken.”
That mid-summer day was hot and still, with not so much as a gentle breeze to stir the soup-thick humidity. Out to the east, a spectacular thunderstorm was cranking up. Mountain-sized puffy-white cumulus clouds boiled up in the ocean blue sky. We could hear the million-volt lightning flashes splitting the air not far away. The storm was coming close. Then, we sensed something eerie, unusual, something different. We got quiet and stood very still.
In the open prairie, all we could hear was the silence. Except for whatever was coming from just the other side of the trees back toward the storm still brewing. Then we saw it, a rustling in the branches. Wild breezes were dancing unharnessed in the treetops at the edge of our miserable stillness. Wind that we could not yet feel but that we could hear and see was ushering in the storm’s refreshing, life-giving rain just behind it. It’s unusual to have proof of what is about to happen just before it does.
Sometimes godforsaken is not the place you’re standing; it’s the way you feel. Hell’s hot winds scorch the barren landscape of your soul. It’s then when Easter people gather, stand still and look to the east, where the sun still rises after the darkest of nights. They listen quietly for the cool breezes of unharnessed hope, rustling in the branches at the edge of their misery, ushering in what God is about to do. Easter faith is the close-by, quiet-rustling assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not yet seen.
03/10/08
That mid-summer day was hot and still, with not so much as a gentle breeze to stir the soup-thick humidity. Out to the east, a spectacular thunderstorm was cranking up. Mountain-sized puffy-white cumulus clouds boiled up in the ocean blue sky. We could hear the million-volt lightning flashes splitting the air not far away. The storm was coming close. Then, we sensed something eerie, unusual, something different. We got quiet and stood very still.
In the open prairie, all we could hear was the silence. Except for whatever was coming from just the other side of the trees back toward the storm still brewing. Then we saw it, a rustling in the branches. Wild breezes were dancing unharnessed in the treetops at the edge of our miserable stillness. Wind that we could not yet feel but that we could hear and see was ushering in the storm’s refreshing, life-giving rain just behind it. It’s unusual to have proof of what is about to happen just before it does.
Sometimes godforsaken is not the place you’re standing; it’s the way you feel. Hell’s hot winds scorch the barren landscape of your soul. It’s then when Easter people gather, stand still and look to the east, where the sun still rises after the darkest of nights. They listen quietly for the cool breezes of unharnessed hope, rustling in the branches at the edge of their misery, ushering in what God is about to do. Easter faith is the close-by, quiet-rustling assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not yet seen.
03/10/08
1 comment:
Awesome post. So glad you started this blog.
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