For Ceci on Easter
I gave every effort to my pen yesterday but it would not write. It could not find words sufficient to the task that labored at my heart. Words for Ceci, but they would not come. Like an empty glass that mocks the want of thirsty lips my pen bled dry upon the lines. The invisible words fell defeated in unwritten despair. Armed in emptiness I withered in the desert of my own inadequacy and instead, surrendered to the desperation of prayer. It is all that I can do when words fail my heart.
It is Easter. I woke this morning with last nights prayer not yet settled and found my words in the rising of an Easter sun. Watching the sun rise, I felt the arms of eternity wrap themselves around me. I felt the hand of immortality reaching down and I heard the sky resound; “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live”.
It is Easter. I hear the sky whisper in my secret places. I gather up the longing in my soul and every wound collected by my heart. I pick up the scattered pieces of my mind and the shadow of every stubborn unforgiveness still clinging to my life. I loose the chains of every hurt and pain, of every sadness uninvited that fell upon my unprotected life. I unwrap my lingering infirmities, every past and present fear, every disappointment anchored to the past. I gather up the unfulfilled dreams and expectations that wither on the vines of yesterday and collect all of my discarded hopes.
It is Easter. I stuff them into an empty pack and wait beneath the Easter sky. It swallows up the packed belongings and returns the empty pack before my feet. I reach higher wanting to follow, but instead, the sun simply settles upon my pleading face and swaddles my infant soul.
It is Easter. Even as I stand looking upward, I want more. I feel the breath of forever suddenly breathe itself into lungs too small to understand what is coming. I feel every eternal tomorrow course through my frail veins and I feel the Easter sky stretch my own mortality across the canvas of an infinite horizon. It is Easter. The promise is seeded from horizon unto horizon and rains fresh without interruption from moment to moment.
It is Easter. As I wait, I feel the private veil within tear open. I feel the stone roll from my embattled heart and I hear His promise echo deep in my inner tomb, “I am with you always, even unto forever”. The words resound within and I feel eternity part my deepest deep.
It is Easter. Even as my evening prayer for Ceci clings to the wake of day, I examine the Easter sky and I think of her, of His promises and I can not, but smile, for my love of her only pales in the light of an incomparable Easter sky. It rises, radiant, in the light of a divine and irrevocable promise.
It is Easter. Because it is, He is here, even now, in every private inner tomb whispering in this moment, in this battle, in every battle, even unto forever, the everlasting words “I am with you".
Yes Ceci; My prayer was answered long before it was ever uttered. The morning sky is seeded with His promise and it falls like fresh rain, moment by moment, whatever the battle, wherever you are.
It is Easter. The sky resounds in hope complete as I see my prayer unfold across the morning's emblazoned and infinite expanse.
