Stillness

The deer visited this week.

It's always a special moment when I get a glimpse of their camouflaged bodies making their way through our backyard. 

It's a reminder of my daddy. A reminder of how he loved watching deer. Yes, as a hunter, but even more as an admirer.

What I realized this week is that the deer are additionally a reminder to me to be still. To pause. To fully absorb, if even only for a moment, the moment in which I find myself. Observing their every inch. Soaking in each twitch of their tail and turn of their ear as if it were the very last time I would ever lay eyes on them.

Perhaps this was what they also provided for my daddy. 

Today, I wake with an even greater clarity of this need for stillness. 

Today, my heart aches for mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, grandparents, aunts, uncles, teachers, students, a community, a country, where everything changed in a moment.

I know this feeling personally.

I understand the thoughts that replay over and over and over in your head considering all the possible alternatives that might have allowed for a different outcome.
I know the questions being asked.
The chaos of emotions.
I know the physical ache that there is no remedy for.
The thoughts of how to move on.....how to even force that next breath.
I understand feelings of hopelessness.
And just when the darkness seems it will swallow all, there is a flicker.
A reminder of something more.
A light that will never go out.
Constant.
A Healer of all hurt.
A Redeemer of all broken.
True Justice. True Love. True Peace.
The One and Only cure for evil.
My Jesus.

And so, I pray.

Why Pray?

Romans 8:25-26 "But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express."