(Also known as, Things Ann Voskamp Prompted Me to Say)
For decades of days I have sensed the presence of a marvel waiting to be. A silver tornado--twisting, hovering--at the edge of my existence.
What epithets have I been called? None. You can’t say I’m a failure. Because I never tried. I shroud myself in recycling, laundry, and recipes. Whisper the lie: "This is all there is." It’s not all. But it is easier. At the end of the day—No, at the end of a life, does easy get you anything?
I dread my habit: Beginning another day I’ll just waste, fritter away. Lord, please don’t think me blasphemous that I want more than simply my daily bread. I desire the silver hurricane--its velocity, passion, urgency. And the sure knowledge that it was here. When I'm gone, will anyone know I was here?
Every morning I lie in the trough, the culvert, of my bed. In between get up and you’re going to be late. I pray: "Make this day special, please. Mold it into something other than meaningless. Because my hands are useless, snuggled in duct tape mittens. Ordinary is a paraffin dip of all of me, not just my hands. Warm, then not. Fluid, then immobile. I need you to dynamite significance into the humdrum white flatness of today's to-do list."
I’m fatigued, tired of living carefully, exhausted from waking in the night with a bottomless craving for abundant life. I don’t want tomorrow to be just another biscuit of a day--pallid, arid, desperately needing a smear of salted Amish butter, raspberry jam, or Nutella.
Even so, I long for contentment in all circumstances. While you’re at it, may I pretty please also have eyes more wide open to the things of you, to the goings on in the spiritual realms, to my own possibilities? What did you place inside me eons ago that I have not yet discovered? What is the God-destiny of me? Lord, please don’t let me perish before I do the thing you formed me for. It's downloaded in my essence, kissed on my DNA. I just have to find the file, the cell, or the strand, and press OPEN.
Even so, I long for contentment in all circumstances. While you’re at it, may I pretty please also have eyes more wide open to the things of you, to the goings on in the spiritual realms, to my own possibilities? What did you place inside me eons ago that I have not yet discovered? What is the God-destiny of me? Lord, please don’t let me perish before I do the thing you formed me for. It's downloaded in my essence, kissed on my DNA. I just have to find the file, the cell, or the strand, and press OPEN.
