Life is fragile but I am not.....

My fingers spread out across my neck and rubbed my collar bone.  An intake of breath followed by a deep sigh.  Closing my eyes, my other hand found its path across my mouth and lips and I lowered my head and rested my chin upon my own flesh.

I just sat there.

Yes, the world still had an orbit.

Yes, time still moved forward.

Yes, life still went on.

But....

In those moments I knew that things would never again be the same.  In those moments I paused and within them became a holy hush, a solemn remembrance...  a most permanent of altars.  In those moments I touched Christ's garment, beheld the infant at the temple, and partook in the outpouring of His blood.  His healing, His birth, His redemption....  It is that which I need..

Moments of where the cries of Gethsemane, the sighs of the garden overtake me and I am left alone to say, "Not my will but yours be done."

It was a phrase that came forth out of my mouth in a quiet moment with a dear friend.  "I am not fragile," I said.  Those four words rocked my insides and the confession of them changed my perspective.

Maybe it is because of the abuse I walked through, or maybe it is because of the mental illness that once plagued my mind... But upon the pronouncement of those four words I felt their truth.  I felt their truth in ways I had never felt.  "I am not fragile," I repeated them.

I breathed them in and I breathed them out and as I exhaled and inhaled I realized how much I had believed to the contrary.  Their truth was hitting me liken to a rebirth and I let those four words sink deep within me... I am not fragile....

So tonight... I saw a picture of beauty emerging from ashes.  And again I heard, "I am not fragile."  I saw so very many pictures flash through my heart and my head, within seconds I wished I was a painter not a sculpture of words.   Images after images... drift wood upon a beach, newborn babes, an elderly woman's arm, smiles, tears, a man kneeling at an altar, a chapel on a hill at dusk covered in the new day's fog.

Beauty from Ashes....  "I am not fragile."

The reality of the gospel, the reality of the passionate pursuit of God, the all consuming reality of Father's desire, Creator's hunger for creation, the reality of beauty without blemish and the facts that nothing can diminish or take from me that love... "I am not fragile."

There are tender, holy moments held within the scope of a day, a time, a life......  There are tender, holy.. private or public moments that become outrageous moments of altar building, times when earth and heaven collide and the force of our Kingdom is manifested.  There are these public or private moments whether on display for all of heaven or all of earth that are forged within our being and I do believe that the cry that emerges is the truth.. that while this life may be fragile.. the children of God are not....