Rushing Waters (Ezekiel 1:24)

Your glory sounds like rushing waters and looks like radiant rainbows.
It sounds like noisy castle play and looks like grinning babies.
It sounds like giddy snow tricks and looks like sopping mittens.
It sounds like chatting over crunching and looks like a colourful fruit plate.
It sounds like devastation over missing a brother and looks like cuddles and a lollipop.
It sounds like a book hitting the bottom stair and looks like a family that is okay with that.

Accomplished (Lam 4:22)

Papa, You could have walked away and left me in my own ugliness.  Yet you considered me worth the trouble of rescuing, in my brokenness and messiness.  My punishment is accomplished and not on my own head.  You carried it all away, what had happened and what was yet to come, such that you can somehow look at these ashes and proclaim them already beautiful.  Your grace to me is matched by Your glory in me, even as yet when I catch it only in glimpses.  Because You declare it is accomplished.

Of His Mercies (Lam 3:22)

It is of the Lord's mercies that I am not consumed
Of His mercies that His glory is my daily experience
Of His mercies that patience and grace fill me enough to overflow
Of His mercies that I see the beautiful hearts and fall in love once again
Of His mercies that my story is saturated with His goodness
Of His mercies that my match loves me as I love him
Of His mercies that I live and breathe and have my being
Because His compassion fails me not

Instinctual (Lam 2:18)

Your absence is palpable, haunting in its pervading sense of Empty.  Its footsteps thump out L-o-n-e-l-y as I trudge down the hall the fourth time to re-put him to bed, the one whose heart only comes out by the glow of the nightlight.  Going through the motions, I feel love alright, but Exhaustion overrides it.  This is too hard without Your song to carry me.  Even as the rhythms of desperate self-talk threaten to holler over Your melody, my soul's instinct is to cry out to You (Lam 2:18).  And my words follow, in the way they were created to, as I draw near to You (Heb 10:22).  As surely as goodness and mercy follow me this day, I will open my eyes to Your glory and grace.

My heart longs for its Maker, the One its adores.  His presence has waned and His absence is poignant, and I sink to my knees.  I am sorry, Papa.  You love me and you let me walk away.  I am so sorry.  Papa, today I want to see You, to hear You, to keep in step with the rhythms of your grace.  Prompt me, prod me, and interrupt me this day, that I might know more of You.  And that, in some small way, You might be amazed at me.