Picture of Grace

Her hands whisper beauty as her feet take their place

The love of movement holds still on her face

All fear that was there is gone with no trace

She is a picture of grace

The music takes form in her fingers and toes

Like a leaf on a river, it ebbs and it flows

Her form likes to follow wherever it goes

Capturing truth in each pose.

Logic meets love in the glow of the lights

Neither one nor the other feeling contrite

Beauty and truth, for a moment, don't fight

For a moment all things seem right

Her pointe is a pen on the audience's soul
Each punctuation soon takes its toll
Cursively writing emotions in scroll
Noting what it means to be whole

The music ends as tears fill their eyes

Even the very most stoic ones cried

They know with the dancer's bow and goodbye

They are left more alive

To Feel Again

I haven't been able to feel much this past week. My heart was stuffy as if it had a cold. Most people think depression is where you are really sad, or a perpetual debbie-downer.  Depression doesn't work that way.  There are two main kinds of depression. On one hand, you have people who feel more than normal people do.  I have a couple of friends like that. "Happy" for them is euphoria for a "normal" person, and sad is dysphoria. They can't contain, nor control their emotions.  They are caught in a whirlwind and feel like they can't get out of it.  People with this type of depression have an incredible blessing beyond the obvious curses; they have felt emotions that I can't begin to comprehend.  They have tasted heaven, along with the hell.

The other kind of depression is, I feel, the more sinister.  People with this depression feel less.  Do you know how hard it is not to feel?  To want to cry, but can't?  To see a sunset that you know is overwhelmingly beautiful, but remain underwhelmed? To eagerly anticipate free time for a hobby, but find yourself unable to focus...again. To walk next to someone special, to share in a precious moment, yet feel distant. Detached. Dead.  What does a man do if he can't feel?  How can a man cry out to God...if he can't cry at all.

Today I felt again; I laughed the hardest I have in a long time; I cried harder than I have in a long time. God heard my muddled, muffled heart.  He gave me strength of heart to live and love. He kindled joy in my heart that gives me hope. It's a reminder to me that God is in all things sovereign.  He can bring a man down to the depths; He can raise him up to the heavens.  He can give a man depth of heart, and he can take it away.  He is the same God to both, and to both, He is good.  He is the measure by which real and normal take meaning.  I don't know why I go through phases of lifelessness, but I know that in it, God is good, and that somehow my lifelessness will bring life more abundant to either me, or some other of His children.  As much as it cuts me to the core, I delight in the opportunity to be forced to rely on God's strength completely, in heart and mind, when my own falters.  God is good.