Surprise Me

I thought about Abraham today. One thing I think is really beautiful about the story of him and Isaac is that in the end, after years of suffering, the tests, the trials, the failures, the fears, he ended up getting his hearts greatest desire and getting to keep it. I thought, too, about Solomon and how he called for a sword to settle a debate between two women.  Just cut the kid in half, one half for each.
 (Aren't we always trying to halve ourselves?) 
The real mother, like Abraham, was willing to sacrifice her greatest desire out of a pure love, the kind often forgotten.  And again, her willingness to make such a sacrifice was what earned her the desire of her heart.  She didn't in fact actually lose what she wanted, she got to have it.  What a miracle that always is.

I think sometimes He wants to test the color of our heart, the truth in it, when the stakes are heightened and everything is on the line. What would you do if backed in a corner, the thing you wanted most dangling in front of you and with such sudden swiftness the threat of your desires' demise? You've no idea what you'd do until you're in the situation. Time has a tricky way of circling back to the same sorts of tests.  And when you find yourself in the same frozen moment nothing surprises more than the realization that you would happily release your hearts desire and with smiling tears of thankfulness, no less.

Nothing no longer surprises.  Not even you.  Or the heart that replaces your former waxen one.

Something happened to me recently and I glimpsed a dream I forgot I once held dear.  I allowed the cobwebs of past heartaches to darken the light once used to illuminate my path.  And slowly, ever so subtly, I had stopped trying to look at all.  So when that forgotten dream came crashing face to face with me the overwhelming ecstasy was dizzying.  And true to form, as the pattern goes, before attaining such treasure, more tests.  More and more and more to the point of paranoid certainty that even ascertainment left room for conviction that surely that wouldn't be the end of it.  Not with cynicism, but in understanding the practice of trials.  In enduring the painful growth occurring continually I relished over the calm patience I now possessed and that it only recently enveloped me as a result of the Great Crash Survival.  How could I not be thankful for such sweet pain?  It had brought me to the peaceful acceptance that washed away my dashed hopes and knowing now that this too could easily end in such a similar file was something I was happy to accept. 

Happy to accept the greatest loss of all?!

 YES.

What beautiful sort of fruit would blossom from such a pruning?  Truly the sort that would entice only the rarest and worthiest admirers.  If one lost the clarity of his vision, another would gain eyes to see and still another and another.  Or not.  But if no one delights in the fruit, it certainly doesn't diminish its beauty.  There are always the eyes of the One who delights in all.  And that is evermore, enough.