during the past week, i've been wandering--between liberation and fear, faith and hunger, a need to go back and the hesitancy to move forward. the striking feeling of a tear-filled day spent pacing back and forth, side to side, stifles my mind, my optimism, my idealism. where has my passion gone?

but when i finally sat down in front of the piano, staring at the keys, i allowed the magic to do its trick. like a stream running through the crevices of the sublime, the music flowed, words to eyes to mind to heart to soul to fingers, trickling through with life, pulsating. it was odd how the music connected with me. i hadn't practiced with the piano for that one song, maybe the tambourine at most. my faith was dancing with the music. it was in the ebb and flow, the tension between what was and what might be, that i died my little deaths. i really had no choice...really---such the demands of grace. i can submit myself to fear or go insane. i can live for the future or dwell in the agony of the days passed. i can die to selfish desires, only to ask to live. these choices---sound simple, but exceedingly difficult.

last night in my small group, i was asked to "move forward" in the "race." strangely enough, worries have diminished--in my very own heart--the "symbol i myself represented." the music reminded me that i can move, that one tiny step, only in faith. the irony of it all...how i must learn to apply it to my life and allow Him to do the rest...