A Christmas Special

   It was Christmas Eve.  

   People have such romantic notions about Christmas Eve.  Winter wonderlands or cozy living room pictures.  Of people singing, laughing, drinking cocoa.  Of candles and choirs and church bells.  Of snow glistening under a moonlit night.  Of peace on earth. 

   And there are other pictures, too.  Mistletoe hanging over doorways.  Flushed cheeks and snow on coats.  Of opening up the door and being surprised by the one you love most who beat all the odds to be with you for Christmas.  There are all those newer Christmas songs about what the grown-ups all wish for on Christmas Eve. 

   It had been a hard year for me, though it would take far too long to explain it all.  When the cold weather and the holiday season began, inwardly I could only groan with dread.  Maybe that was why I'd put off my shopping until the last few hours of the very last day before Christmas.  

   I hadn't noticed the days slipping by.  Then yesterday I panicked, and here I was---where no self-respecting person ever wants to be---Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve.

   The traffic was horrible.  The crowds were worse.  The swarms of people had picked over most of the store's shelves.  My half-baked gift ideas were in a crowded batch on my long shopping list, and every hour that slipped away was burning them to cinders.  

   I had slithered through the mass of humanity, dodging, wheeling, hunting.  The long lines of complaining adults, wailing children, whining teenagers, all to the beat of the relentless Christmas music---all "remixed"---had been enough to make me tear at my hair.  Literally.  Come to think of it, I hope no one noticed that.

   Each maddening wait I had used to plan my next errand, best strategy, even trying to remember where in the store each item I needed was usually located.  Which, of course, I couldn't.  

   I had a splitting headache, but didn't dare stop in a coffee shop.  "Let a man meet a she-bear robbed of her cubs rather than an American without their caffeine."  Oh, wait.  That's supposed to be "a fool in his folly."  Meh, it works both ways.  

   By my third stop I was exhausted.  I was hungry, thirsty, caffeine deprived, and had a nagging headache.  Three more stops to go.  Yup.  Three.  I was trying very hard not to think of all the wrapping I would still have to do when I got home.  If there were any boxes left for me to use...

   Yet somehow...somehow I swiped my card for the very last purchase, bid the last specimen of downtrodden humanity behind the counter to hang in there, and found myself walking to the door.  

   I dodged people left and right, my hands full of heavy shopping bags. Past the lifeless mannequins, some of them yelling and screeching to each other.  Past the ruined displays and the clothes and hangers everywhere.  I trudged up to the glass door, wishing I had strength and energy to run, but having to summon my strength to even push the door open.

   I stumbled out into a biting wind as it swept the lit street of a shopping center.  The "music" was out here, too.  So were the people.  All of them.  Everywhere.  There were lights of all colors and varieties glaring from every direction.  I'd be feeling overwhelmed if I had the energy to.  Or, wait...had I been overwhelmed so long that I no longer had any energy?  That sounded right, but I didn't have time to think it through.  Or the energy...Good heavens I couldn't even straight anymore!

   I turned the direction that would take me to my car and began to plod along at as steady pace as I could manage.  

   I glanced at the stores around me as I passed them.  They were all lit up so that they looked inviting and beautiful, but each one was dreary on the inside.  A shopping center at Christmas is supposed to be full of cheer and goodwill or whatever, but look at all these faces around me.  Provoked.  Irritated.  Exhausted, like me.  And listen to all the Noise.  People yelling, people arguing.  All of them---including me---scrambling for stuff.  For things.  As if we don't own enough things already.  

   Well, at least the lights were less here.  My headache began to ease.               
       
   How had Christmas Eve come to mean so little to me?  Never mind the crowds, they didn't know better, perhaps.  But I did.  I had purposefully let things slide.  I had avoided Christmas, avoided everything to do with Christmas this year.  Even the old Christmas albums my family listened to every year.  I couldn't say why, exactly.  It just felt empty, somehow.  

   The relentless wind seemed to tear right through my little jacket.  I shivered again and trudged on.  

   The idea of shopping had irked me especially this year.  That was why I'd put it off for so long.  The stuff.  The money.  It all seemed so pointless.  So cold.  Even now, at this moment, I couldn't even feel elated at my hard-won success.  I just wanted to take a page out of Ebenezer Scrooge's book and dismiss everything with a "Bah!  Humbug."  

   Sweet mercy was it ever cold out here!!  But as that thought crossed my mind, another followed on its heels: "My heart is cold, too."  

   I knew it was true, and it didn't even surprise me.  I felt empty on the inside.  Nothing really seemed to matter anymore, and I'd stopped caring.  

   Then at last a flicker of fear shot up inside me.  I didn't want to be like this for the rest of my life.  Is this how grown-ups feel every Christmas? 

   It was so quiet by now that I should have been able to think it through, but my mind was swimming around and around and wouldn't stop.  Then all at once I understood.  For the past few hours I had been living inside my head.  At this point I was exhausted, mentally and physically.  I'd be able to think more clearly once I got home.  

   What happened next is rather difficult to describe.  When I made that realization, I think I made an effort to pull myself together.  My mind was still hazy, so the first thought to swim its way into the mix was the idea of, "My car's not getting any nearer."  

   After which came the next thought, "Wait.  Where is my car?  Am I in the wrong parking lot?"  

   You know how in dreams you'll be doing something in a particular location, then without warning you realize that you were actually somewhere else, or that the plot of the dream has suddenly changed?  It was a little like that now, only it wasn't exactly sudden.  That is, I stopped in my tracks and looked up.  First, I remembered that I'd been walking with my head down, staring at the ground before my feet.  I then realized how dark it was around me, and that I'd been seeing my way by moonlight.  I only then noticed how quiet it was, even though when I called my memory to witness, it declared it had been quiet for a long time now.  In dreams these kind of things happen suddenly, but it didn't feel sudden to me.  The main realization to me was that all this had been going on for some time now, and I had lost all track of time.  

   Looking about in every direction, I saw trees.  I mean huge trees with massive trunks.  When I looked up, I could only see a few stars tangled in the foliage above, and the moon.  

   Of course, the idea that I was dreaming occurred to me, but it didn't seem plausible.  I was more awake at this moment than I had been five minutes ago.  I was still carrying all my shopping bags and still had my key ring looped over my finger.  I was still dressed in my sweater and jeans and my thin jacket.  My memory recalled me walking for quite some distance, but I couldn't remember seeing a single car, or parking lot.  

   At once I dug in my purse for my cell phone and pulled it out.  I used the flashlight beam to look around.  No, my eyes were not playing tricks on me.  I really was inside a wood, if not a forest, in the dead of night, with no other creature within sight.  I strained my eyes for any glimmer of light that might signal where the shopping center was, but I saw nothing.  

   I was not frightened, only bewildered.  My own senses were telling me that I'd somehow wandered into a wood, away from all civilization, without even realizing it.  I decided to find my location on Google Maps and see if I could find my way back to the shopping center.  My phone unlocked, but there was no signal, and none of my apps would open.  Not good.  My stomach sank. 

   Then I thought that perhaps I had followed a path inside, and that all I needed to do was turn around.  But I'd been looking around me for so long I wasn't sure which way was back.  I again turned on the flashlight (thank goodness that still worked) and carefully examined the ground around my feet. 

   No path.  No footprints.  Only cold, dead grass underfoot.  Only trees all around.  Oh, this was bad.  My uneasiness grew stronger than my bewilderment.  

   "Hooo.  Hooo."  A deep-throated call of an owl somewhere overhead made my heart jump in my chest.  I took a few breaths to steady myself and tried to think the situation through.  

   "Okay.  Okay, I'm in the woods.  I have to get out.  I can't find my location, I can't call for help, and I can't just stand here.  I'll just have to pick a direction and walk."  

   I didn't much like this, but I knew I had to.  I made the best guess at what direction I'd come from and began walking.  I clutched my phone in one hand, my pepper spray in the other, my shopping bags all hanging from my arms.  

   I walked for a long time, not even certain I was keeping up a straight line.  My eyes were peeled, scanning in all directions, ears alert, though all I could hear was my heart thumping away rather faster than it should. 

   Presently, I thought the trees around me were growing farther apart.  Encouraged by this, I hurried forward, catching myself wondering if I should find a little cottage where I might ask for shelter for the night, just like a traveler in a fairy tale.  But when I at last stumbled to the edge, I saw it was only a small clearing, oval in shape, with a few bushes and plants dotted about it, all lit by the cold glamour of the moon.  

   Biting my lip, I tried not to cry.  My arms were aching from all the stuff I was carrying.  My feet were burning, and I could feel some nasty blisters forming.  I put my phone back into my purse and zipped it up with an impatient tweak.  I took a few steps into the clearing and glared up at the moon.  

   "I just want to go home!"  I snapped out to no one in particular.  "How is this even happening?  What am I supposed to do?"  

   The moon held my gaze in her cool, unblinking one.  There was no answer.  Only the winter silence, and the sound of the bitter wind, (for out of the shelter of the trees, there was nothing to break it.)  

   Hearing my own voice had a strange effect on me.  Part of me felt annoyed at that snappish voice and wished the owner would go away.  But I knew that was my voice.  Part of me wished I hadn't spoken.  It made me realize how alone I was.  I could be anywhere in the world,---or heck, even out of my world!---and there was no one to hear, no one to help. 

   Finally my bewilderment and resolve gave way to my fear and loneliness.  Hot tears spilled out of my eyes. I hung my head.

   But just then, I heard something far away.  At once I raised my head, all senses on alert.  It seemed to be melodic.  Was it a voice?  And where was it coming from?  It seemed to be drawing nearer, but the wind made it tricky to tell.  Torn between the overwhelming urge to run away and the impulse to shout to hail the voice, I simply stood there, trembling with fear (and the cold).

   For a moment the wind died down, and I heard a man's voice singing out:   

   "Ding-dong merrily on high!
   In heav'n the bells are ringing!
   Ding-dong merrily the sky
   Is riv'n with angels' singing!"  

   The wind took up the "Gloria" that followed and played with it, making it it sound as if it were coming from every direction at once.

   "Gloria!  Hosanna in excelsis!" 

   Torn again between hope and fear, I simply stood and waited to see if the singer would enter the clearing.  If he seemed to be going past, I would shout. 

   All at once, the singer emerged from the trees at the far side of the clearing.  He was directly opposite me, and he strode straight toward me, singing as he came.  Did he even see me?  In this tricky light, I could not tell.  All I could see was that he was a man with silver hair, and he wore a long, full cloak of some heavy dark material.  Then I saw he had a walking stick, though he strode along as strong and as purposeful as a man in his prime.  He reminded me of a wizard, straight from the pages of a fairytale.  At once a rush of hope rose up in me.  He could not be evil if he was singing a hymn with such joy.  Yet I felt afraid, too.   

   The singer strode toward me, and when were close enough to see each other's faces, I saw he was an old man with a wrinkled face, a rather large nose, and a pair of dancing blue eyes.  If he had looked like how I'd imagined Gandalf or Dumbledore to have looked, I would have taken it as proof that I was dreaming, but he did not.  He was smiling at me, just as if we had arranged to meet on this very spot. 

   How to describe his eyes?  Looking back on it now, words come reluctantly.  There was so much joy in them, and laughter.  But after one glance into them, I could see that he knew me.  I could see that he knew who I was and the predicament I was in.  Those eyes were full of secrets, and their keenness cut me like a knife.  This was no one to trifle with.  His very goodness felt frightening.  And me...my heart was cold and resentful.  And he knew it.  

   He strode on until he stood a few feet in front of me.  Then he stopped and leaned on his staff, looking whimsically down at me.  I didn't know what to say.  But then he spoke, "What are you doing out in the forest at so late an hour?"  

   "Well, I've---lost my way, Sir."  

   "Indeed you have.  In more ways than one.  Do you know how it happened?"  

   "No, I don't.  I just sort of found myself here."  I paused, and then asked, "Do you know how I got here, Sir?"  

   His eyes were grave now, but not severe.  "I think," he replied, "that you lost your way by trying to find your way back.  Everyone who tries to find their way back into the past eventually ends up lost in this forest."  

   Startled, I blinked once or twice and said nothing.  I had an idea to ask him if he meant getting turned in the wrong direction by forgetting which way I'd come from, but I knew he wouldn't be fooled by playing dumb.  

   So I just repeated, " 'Finding my way into the past?' "  

   "Isn't that what you were doing?"

   I thought for a moment.  I was on the edge of comprehension, but I still didn't quite see.  "Please, I don't understand."  

   "When you were out shopping tonight, why were you angry?"  

   My cheeks burned, and I ducked my head.  "Well," I spoke slowly, "I guess it was because things weren't going the way I wanted them to.  Is that...?  Oh..." 

   "Well?"  

   I was beginning to understand, but I was ashamed to say it out loud.  "Is that what's been wrong with me all year?  Is that why Christmas has lost the magic it once had?"  (It would have sounded silly to speak like this to most people, but darkness in a forest standing before a cloaked Stranger holding a staff will do a number on your inhibitions.)  

   "Is that why nothing has the magic it once had?"  I asked in a rush.  My throat tightened, and I found myself looking up into the Stranger's face to hear his answer.  

   The Stranger's eyes held my gaze.  "Child, when we live each day angry that our story isn't being written the way we want, we are angry at the Author.  When we are angry at Him, there can be no joy.  There can be no love, or meaning, or purpose in anything.  We shut our eyes to the beauty of the world around us and muddy the streams of blessings He sends us each day. When we do not trust Him, we cannot love Him.  When we do not love Him, we certainly will not obey Him."  

   He paused.  I tried to look away, then found I didn't want to.  

   "You have been trying to live inside the past.  Trying to have the happiness you once had by constantly recalling those memories.  But memories cannot be lived in, nor can you change your circumstances.  That time has passed." 

   At last the emotions that I had kept dammed up inside me grew too strong to hold back.  The barrier burst, and all at once I was weeping helplessly.  Right there in front of the cloaked Stranger.  Right there in the moonlit glade, in the howling wind, still clutching my absurd shopping bags.  

   I cried for my friends who had gone out of my life.

   I cried for the golden dreams and silvery hopes I'd cherished that would never be mine.

   I cried because I was always catching glimpses of Beauty that set my heart sick with desire; yet the whispers always passed me by.  They never brought what they promised.  

   I cried because I was always feeling alone.  No matter how many people cared about me, or how much fun I managed to distract myself with, I always felt left behind and forgotten when the noise around me died away.  It was weariness to live with that starving sensation on the inside; worse than hunger or thirst but which nothing could ever slake.  

   I cried because all that the Stranger had said was true, and I was seeing myself for a moment as I actually was.  

   How long I stood there weeping, I never knew.  Presently my sobs spent themselves into a sigh or two.  When my eyesight cleared, I saw the Stranger's boots had come just opposite my own feet.  A faint flicker of hope ran through my heart at the sight of them.  I had begun to wonder if he had gone away.  But he was there.  

   I waited a few moments for him to speak, but he said not a word.  He seemed to be waiting for me to say something first, but what was there to say?  We both knew what he said was true.  I could still cry over it all.  As a matter of fact, I could keep on weeping for the rest of my life.  Giving in to the tears had merely given expression to the endless pain within me.  I had concealed it hoping I could control it or numb it.  But this pain wasn't going away.  

   My common sense finally awoke within all the muddle of emotions.  It suddenly flashed across my mind that I didn't want to go on standing here crying for ever.  That was absolutely absurd.  

   My senses caught hold of the practical thought like a lifeline.  It was like treading on solid ground after slipping over a sheet of ice.  I still had to get out of the forest.  The Stranger had said that those who kept going backward always found themselves lost here.  That implied that if I changed my mindset, there would be a way out.  Back to home and life.  

   So I wiped my eyes (and nose) on the sleeve of my jacket and looked up at the Stranger's face.  

   "Where do I go from here, Sir?"  

   It would be impossible to describe the way the Stranger smiled at me.  Something of it can be found when you yank dark curtains away from a tall window on a summer afternoon.  Something of it can be found in memories of deep childhood when your mother used to tuck you in bed.  The wind around us suddenly died down, and all at once a shiver seemed to pass through the tangled forest.  

   "I was sent to show you the way," he told me, still smiling.  "Will you come?"  

   "Yes." 

   The Stranger walked past me, toward the forest's edge that I had come from.  I waited for him to pass, then followed him.  

   At the first step I noticed that somehow the light had changed.  The cold moonshine was completely gone.  Instead everything was glowing in the silver sheen of a trillion stars.  I was wondering where the moon had gone when I saw the Stranger had stopped and had turned to face me.  

   "Walk up here beside me," he invited, stretching out his arm to me.  "You are cold."  

   Gratefully I obeyed, for I was almost numb by now.  "Thank you, Sir."  

   When I reached him, he threw his cloak around my shoulders.  It whooshed around me and all my packages and tucked itself in around my other shoulder.  It must have been of a magic material, for it was delightfully snug and did not hamper my feet in the least.  I shivered in relief, and we walked into the forest side by side.  

   The starlight penetrated the treetops, and I saw that there was indeed a path below our feet that certainly hadn't been there before.  

   "Does the path only show if you're walking this direction?" I asked.  

   "You can only see the Path if you're walking on it," he explained.  "It is the Narrow way, and you cannot perceive or follow it unless you are in obedience to our Lord.  Few there are that find it, but it is found by all who seek for it."  

   I smiled.  Then a thought struck me.  "What if someday I get lost in this forest again and I can't see the path?  What if I don't know why I ended up in it again?"  

   "Then I suppose you must ask Him to show you the Way."  

   "And what if He---doesn't answer?"  I offered tentatively. 

   Under the cloak he turned my shoulder so that he could see my face. He read my eyes in a swift, keen glance.

   “You think He might not answer?”

   “He doesn't always answer,” I offered timidly. “Sometimes He is silent.”

   I stopped talking. There was so much more I could say, but I couldn't bring myself to say it. I would have liked to explain to him that most of the time God seemed very far away, even when I tried to seek Him out.

   For a long time, longer than I cared to calculate, prayers to the Lord seemed to me like...like letters to a King from a citizen.  They came from my heart, worded as respectfully and as hopefully as I dared.  Praying them was like dropping them into a mailbox, never to be seen again.  I never expected to hear from Him; anything He would say to me was already written in the Bible.  Heartfelt prayers and tears in the dark I can pour forth, but He always seems so far away.  I know the Bible says to request things with all supplication and praise and gratitude...but how exactly does someone ask for the kinds of things my heart longs for?  Things like how I want to be married, and to have children.  And what about things that are abstract?  I long for adventure, beauty, and fulfillment.  How do you ask God for something like that?  If He is sovereign---which He is---than why ask Him for anything?  If He wanted me to have it, He would have already given it to me---right?  We're to pray for things “according to His will,” but what exactly does that mean?  I can read my Bible and guess at the sort of things that might be according to His will, but I could never know in advance what He really wants for my life.  I mean, come on...look at this year.  Such a twist in the plot.  I've no earthly idea where I am headed.  Where I am doesn't even make sense.  And I'm not just talking about the forest.

   I can't just say things like that.  I know it isn't right, somehow.  I should find my answers in the Bible.  But how---how do you pray in hope---or ask for things---when you don't think He really cares?

   There, I said it.  In my head anyway.  There it is.  Fulfillment and beauty and adventure may be promised me in the next life, but nothing is promised to me now.  Why ask for it?  Why bother Him with it?  Aren't we supposed to obey?  Do the right thing.  Then do the next thing.  And the next.  And the next.  Keep going.  We're supposed to be doing things for Him, obeying Him.  Those other desires only seem to get me in trouble when I humor them.

   ...Or...perhaps the reason I try to lose myself in serving is so that it might numb the pain of perpetual disappointment.  Life is hard.  I shouldn't expect it to be beautiful and exciting.  I know that, and yet somehow I can never get over the disappointment of how things always are.  Life wasn't meant to be this way, but it always is.  Oh, I know that's not a feeling unique to me.  Every other person on this planet knows that they and the world around them is not what it should have been.  I know that everyone feels as empty on the inside as I do.  I know everyone is as lonely on the inside as I am.  I just try to ignore the pain by focusing on other things.  That's the difference.  Some people strive to fill the void.  I've given up, and I just want to try to numb the pain.  Just hoping against hope that someday Christ may call me home or come back for us and stop the pain.  But He doesn't come. Life is a living death that never quite ends.  The discontent in me will not be quiet, will not be subdued.

   So it seems...even as I serve...even as I try to obey...that God has forgotten me.  Or doesn't care about my present state, since He'll fix it all later.

   And really, why argue with Him?

   Like I said, I can't articulate these thoughts aloud.  They're wrong, I guess, though I don't really know how.  When He's silent, you can only wait for Him to speak or intervene, and just do your best in the meantime.

   My eyes had glazed over as I collected these thoughts.  The Stranger still stood facing me, as if waiting for me to explain.  I couldn't.  Not out loud.  I looked up at him to see what he would say.

   His expression made me flush with shame.  It wasn't as if he was reading my eyes this time.  It was plain he already knew my whole thought process better than I knew it myself.  His eyes were piercing, reproachful, and yet they held a strange pity.

   He said nothing.  He only turned and began walking with me again, his arm still across my shoulders.

   “My dear,” he spoke after a painful (at least for me) few minutes' silence.  “I believe you have forgotten how the Story actually goes.”

   “Which story, Sir? Mine?”

   “No, no. I cannot read your story. I mean the Story of Christ and His incarnation.  You seem to have forgotten several crucial points, and now you're reading your own story wrong because of it.”

   I could sense that he was right.  I had no desire to argue or explain myself.  Perhaps he would set me straight if I asked him.  Anyway, I can never resist a good story, even if it's one I've heard before.

   “Will you tell me, Sir?  Please.”

   “Well, to start with, you and I are rebels, my dear.  We were born from Adam's doomed line; under God's fury by birth and by choice.  Now, if God's will was to withdraw His love from us, He would have done so.  It would have pleased His just wrath at our disobedience to cast us into eternal punishment at any given moment.  We would be found guilty.”

   “But,” the Stranger continued, “such was not God's will.”

   A sudden, sweeping wind rose up, causing the trees about us to nod their boughs and whisper to each other.

   “God is just.  But He was unwilling to leave us in our damned state.  When the angels fell into sin, they were banished from His presence with no hope of deliverance.  But God in His mercy, chose to set His favor upon wretched Man.  It was His divine genius that formed a plan for how to both pay for the wrongs committed, and yet to reconcile His creatures to Himself.  To pay their ransom, and make them His sons and daughters.”  He paused a moment, then asked me, “Do you think that God cares nothing for you?”

   I shook my head mutely.

   “It was Christ,” the Stranger went on, “Christ the second Person of the Trinity who volunteered to lay down His life to pay the penalty.  The Law that we have broken demanded blood.  And Christ was eager to take our punishment upon Himself.”

   “So the Father sent forth His Son on a mission. Christ would take on humanity; become a Man himself.  The fullness of God's nature, and also the full extent of Man's nature.  His frailty, his weakness, his helplessness.  Even under the Law that He had written.  He would enter our world as a wailing, helpless infant.  He would be born into poverty, knowing hunger and thirst and want. Knowing grief and sorrow.   He would be misunderstood, hated, and separated from the intimacy and glory of His Father.  He would be abandoned, betrayed, and falsely accused.  He would be stretched out on the cruelest instrument of torture man can think of, and be mocked and abused by the ones He loved and came to save.”

   I shuddered. Suffocation. Splinters. Whips. Nails. Spit. Nakedness. Agonizing thirst. Thorns. Sweat. And blood. To see His own blood pouring down.

   “But what did He tell us, during His ministry, about His character?”   The Stranger's voice interrupted my reverie.  “He told us that God's character was like a shepherd who, counting all of his sheep realized one had wandered away.  Now what would man do in that situation?  Stay with the others so that no more would wander away, perhaps.  But God would rather seek out the lost one and give Himself no rest until He could find it and bring it home, no matter how far away it had run or how much trouble it had gotten itself into.  He came to seek and save the lost.”

   “He went about healing those who cried out to Him.  Blind from birth, physical deformities, wasting diseases, it made no difference.  He brought back those who had already died!  Reversing the curse, undoing the hurt in the world.  But more than that, He gave us His truth.  He addressed the issues at the root, where all sin and sorrow reside: the heart.  He was sharp to the self-righteous, and He was gracious to the ones who knew they needed help.”

   “He told us that God watches out for the birds, providing them with food, and knowing when each one's life was ended.  Christ told us that we were worth far more to Him than the birds.  He said that He knew the number of hairs on each of our heads.”

   Here he stopped, turned, and looked down at me.  In the dark the starlight was mirrored in his eyes. His gaze penetrated me; it felt as though he was looking right into my soul.

   “Do you think then, that He has forgotten you?” he inquired softly.  “Do you suppose the One who counts each star in its galaxy and every hair on your head was not concerned when your heart was broken?”

   Tears blinded my sight.

   “Do you think that the One who was acquainted with grief cares nothing for your sorrow?  Or that the One who hears the cries of the ravens paid no heed to your anguished prayers?  Was it not He in the garden who entreated His Father for any other way than the road of suffering before Him?  Did He not learn obedience Himself when, in the face of terror and anguish and death itself, He prayed, 'Yet not my will, but Yours be done' ?”

   “Or do you suppose that He knows nothing of loneliness or emptiness?  Separated from His Father, abandoned by His friends, enduring His Father's wrath and anger?  What was it, then, that made Him cry out---”

   Here the Stranger threw back his head, and in a mighty voice that made the whole forest ring, he sounded the old, old cry---

   “My God, my God---why have you forsaken me?”

   I had my eyes shut tight, shivering at the thought.

   “Child,” the Stranger spoke to me again in his gentle, level voice.  “He endured all that to bring you near.  When He emerged triumphant from the grave, the Master of Death, the Lord of Life...it was to save you.  He is now still Man, at the right hand of His Father, the sympathetic High Priest.  He pleads for you before the God who sent Him at the first to ransom you.  The Holy Spirit lives within you, guiding you, assuring you that you are His forever.  Do you imagine that you can be lost from Him?”

   I opened my eyes and blinked away my tears.  Once again, he lead me forward.

   In a few minutes we had come to the edge of a great open field, still fringed all about with trees.

   “Now,” he spoke in a merrier tone.  “Your home is on the other side of this field.  And it is here we must part company.”  He drew away his cloak from my shoulders.

   “Oh,” I spoke dazedly, as if coming out of a dream.  I stared very hard across the field, but saw nothing that would indicate the electric lights of the world I must return to.  But then, I knew better than to trust my eyes alone.  I turned to the Stranger, and as his marvelous smile beamed at me, a surge of emotion welled up inside me.  I shifted all the shopping bags into my left hand and offered him my right.

   “Thank you for setting me right, Sir.  Thank you for everything.”

   He stepped forward and took my hand.  “You should thank the One who sent me,” he smiled.  “But you are most welcome, and it was my pleasure.”

   He bowed over my hand, and he kissed it. I couldn't help laughing a bit in surprise. And rather against my better judgment, I tightened my fingers and stammered out, “Will I ever see you again?”

   I know, I know, it's a cliché thing to ask, but seriously, wouldn't you have done the same?

   “Of course you will,” he answered readily.  “If not in this life, then in the life to follow.  But we will certainly meet again.”

   I smiled and withdrew my hand.

   “Our Lord would not have told us to draw near if He wanted us to stay at a distance." He reminded me gently.  " 'He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also in Him graciously give us all things?'  'Ask, and you shall receive.  Seek and you shall find.  Knock and it shall be opened unto you.'  It may not look like how you expect, but no more of this nonsense that He has forgotten you.”

   I nodded. 

   The Stranger stepped forward and raised my chin with his fingers. “Go in obedience and faith, and joy will find you.”  Then he kissed my forehead almost like a blessing or a benediction.

   “I will,” I promised.  We each gave a little wave, and I set out across the field.

   It was certainly a huge field.  There was a layer of frost over the grass that sparkled in the faint starshine.  I stopped, as is my habit when alone at night, to gaze up at the sky.

   It was such a clear night that you could see the haze of light from the galaxies.  My city-bred eyes do not often get to see just how crowded the night sky is with stars.  There were trillions of them in every direction.

   All at once I laid down my shopping bags and stood up straight, drinking in the sight.  How near the stars seemed to be!  They looked as if they were just inches above the trees.  The more I turned about to look at them, the more I could see.

   Slowly, rather like a volume knob being turned up, Music seemed to be coming through to me. Cold and strange with a whole complexity of harmonies.  Well, I say Music, but I don't think I was hearing it at all.  Not through my ears.  It's difficult to explain.  I wasn't hearing sounds, the way we think of when we think of music.  It was something I was sensing tangibly through every nerve in my body, and it registered in my mind rather like music.

   Then, with growing wonder, the idea crossed my mind that I was hearing the Music of the Spheres. The song that the heavens declare, the harmonies, the vibrations, the throb of emotion, the joy of unfallen creation that it had been singing since the day it was called into being.  The stars and planets were around me in every direction I could look, and I supposed my feet must have left the ground.  I seemed to be in the sky, though each orb was infinitely far from me.  I don't know how I felt no fear. There was overpowering wonder, but not a trace of fear.  Fear was not in me, somehow. 

   The starry heavens rippled and tossed.  Wait...was I in the sky or under water?  The dark changed to the clearest, most dazzling aquamarine.  I seemed to be rocked and borne within the lilting rhythm of the Tides.  I seemed to see glimpses of the swarms of living creatures that live in the seas. Coral, fishes, great creatures, tiny shellfish, starfish, and all the plants, each of them swaying or dancing in time to the hidden music. The colors, the shapes, the textures, the dancing lights, all of it was pulsing with joy and harmony.  It was so glorious I could have wept with joy, adding my tears to the salty waters.

   Then I seemed to see the great waves on the surface, rising, rising, then curling at the tips...to curve forward into a living liquid glass arc of motion. Then the crash as it folded in upon itself, only to rise and fall again.

   Then I seemed to remember the cool, dewy Spring.  (Though whether I was indeed seeing it or if the Music was translating itself into pictures in my mind I was never quite sure.)  But I remembered the breeze through open windows in March when the cold finally spent itself, leaving a young, hopeful sweetness in its place.  The dainty, dewy flowers and the new growth pushing out of the soft, wet ground.  It made me think of Easter, and of the glorious promise of Resurrection, when all things would be made new.  For the Spring always came, no matter how bitter the frosts had been, nor how long it had lingered into the year.

   And then somehow I saw the night again among the trees of some well-manicured grounds, with fireflies flitting all about, like fairies.  I knew at once it was summer by the warm, humid air laden with the immortal scent of growing things.  I heard crickets and cicadas in their evensong, and the twittering of sleepy birds just after sunset.

    Ah...then the crisp whiff in a cool breeze...the ebullient harpsichord rumor of Change coming.  I was plunged into the fragrant shower of falling golds, reds, fiery oranges, mellowed greens and rich plums as they twirled through the air.  I smelled the ripened fields, the sweet odors of the dying leaves.  I could hear the scrunching and skittering of leaves under foot...I could smell the scent of pumpkin, and a fragrant feast cooking in a warm kitchen...feel the comfort of enveloping sweaters, softened with age.  I felt the promise of Adventure, and the restless desire to wander.  And the singing...the hope of Christmas...the plucking of strings and the blast of herald trumpets...

   A new picture sharpened upon my eyes.  An enormous chain of mountains stretching as far as the eye could see in both directions.  They were all unscalable peaks, glimmering sapphire and pearly white under a Northern sky.  Was that...a wall...running along the very top?  A wall indeed, with towers at regular intervals along it.

   I gazed at it and thought I could make out an enormous gate in its center. And behind it...was that...?

   It was.  It was a castle...or a palace...or a stronghold, it was impossible to tell which...or was it all of them?

   As I watched, the shining trails of the Aurora Borealis awoke and shimmered throughout the starry sky.  At the same moment, a Music came to me from within the castle walls...and no---alas, alas!---I could not make out a melody, or a single phrase, nor any chord to remember.  But whatever it was, it rushed over me, overpowering my senses, my mind, my will, my soul, my emotions.  It awoke my desires, my affections, and every longing that is possible to feel.  How to describe it?  It was as elfin and ethereal as the piping of the daintiest pennywhistle, yet it held all the authority and masculinity of the noble French horn.  It was as sweet as the violin, as piercing as the oboe, and yet inside it were thousands of choirs of voices giving unceasing glory and worship.  Tears streamed down my face and were frozen into snowflakes that were swept away in the mighty North Wind that lifted my hair and whirled it about.

   Everything within me wanted to go there. I knew that everything my heart desired must be there...for He must be there.  The One who had given His blood to ransom me.  Was the music calling for me?  Could it be?  No...no, not yet.  The Call was there, but not the final summons.  Oh...how to live?  How to go on living?  It was almost worse than never hearing it at all...for I felt the Music fading into the distance.  I could feel the world I lived in coming closer, the Pictures slipping away.

   The last thing I remember was...well, I didn't exactly hear a Voice.  Not with my ears, anyway.  With my mind.  Into my mind.  It translated into my mind the idea of a Voice in a few specific words, as if it was using a memory of mine to speak anew to me.

   Infinitely powerful, and infinitely tender, the words:

   “No more despair.”

   My feet touched the ground.  I was staring upwards, and it seemed as though the night sky closed overhead.  I was back in the starlit field, my bags sitting beside me.

   In the stillness that followed I tried to grasp all I had seen, but the harder my memory worked, the more it slipped from me.  With an effort that wrung my heart, I let the memories go, and only held to the words still ringing in my mind.

   I was afraid the loss of such priceless treasure trove would make my heart ache for the rest of my life...but no.  Like a falling star, the memories of the images softly faded back into my mind.  Like a glowing, pulsing ember, they nestled themselves into some deep cavern in my heart.  And there they shall stay, till the end of my days.

   I knew what I had to do.  With a deep breath, I gathered up my bags and followed my feet to the further edge of the field.  I had to go on.  I had to follow the path.  That was what mattered now.

   As I reached the edge of the field, I saw my house through the trees, all lit up as though expecting me.  Astonished, I broke into a run.  The trees ended at the edge of my driveway, where my car was parked.  I walked up to my front porch and looked back.  The forest was receding, melting away.  I noticed a bright light shone from within it not too far away.  I felt sure it was light from the Stranger's staff.  I smiled, lifting my hand and waving to it.  The forest and the light faded into my own street, under the night sky.

   So I unlocked my door, and went in.

   Merry Christmas to you all.

Love,

~Cadenza       

Heartbreak

   I don't even know where to begin.  I'm not sure where this will even go.  Not that that's much different from my other posts.

   Still, I need to blog.  I've been away too long, and I can't avoid it forever.

   I suppose the place to start is to say that, yes, as the title implies, my heart has been broken.  I now know what that feels like.  

   I had other plans for this post, but already that seems like a year ago.  My older posts feel like a lifetime ago.  

   Last December after Christmas, he pursued me.  He actually pursued me.  This godly young man looked into my eyes and asked me if I would be willing to pursue a serious relationship with him.  I told him yes.  

   We stood up and hugged.  It seemed to me that years of miscommunication and misunderstanding had been wiped clean in a moment.  

   We dated.  I was pursued by the man who had captured my heart.  For a few months, the Schoolmaster was mine.  

   But this March he broke it off.  I told him he must do what he thought was right.  

   I don't understand why.  I still don't today.  Maybe I never will.  

"When this all began
I knew there'd be a price.
Once upon a dream
We were lost in love's embrace
There we found a perfect place
Once upon a dream.
Once there was a time
Like no other time before
Hope was still an open door
Once upon a dream.
And I was unafraid
The dream was so exciting
But now I see it fade
And I am here alone.
Once upon a dream
You were heaven-sent to me
Was it never meant to be?  
Was it just a dream?
Could we begin again---
Once upon a dream?"   

---"Once Upon a Dream," from "Jekyll and Hyde."  (Additional lyrics mine.)   

"I could weep
My whole life long
Future years 
With you now gone.
I'll cry 
Until we both are
Underwater
Forever.
See my tears flow!  
This H2O
It is filled with heartbreak
Without your love
These tears don't
Even begin 
To express
This 
Emptiness..."   

---"Tears," from "The Light Princess."  (Additional lyrics mine.)  

   I know why my posts sometimes get preachy.  It's because I have to preach to myself.  Preaching it to myself helps me to get my perspective right again, even if it's redundant or sounds like I'm trying to set myself up to be somebody greater than I am.  

   Heh.  Nope.  

   Eventually I came to realize that this is going to take some time to get over.  I didn't get all these feelings overnight, so...it's going to take a while to, well, to move on.  And that's okay.  Life goes on.  I still have to go to work and do things in my home and go to events.  And around me the weeks keep going, and the months.  The seasons are changing around me once more, bringing all the old feelings and memories and dreams that are somehow just as new to me as they ever were.

   It's a blessing that life moves on.  In grief---and in heartbreak---sometimes that feels like the worst infliction.  The worst part is living with the pain, day in and day out.  You wish it would get better because you're tired of hurting, and yet the idea of there being distance between what you lost and where you are now hurts you just as much, only in a different way.  It will get better.  I know it will.  It already has.  I may be young, but I've seen enough of life to know that it is constantly changing.  Some days I'm my old self again, perky and mischievous and hopeful.  But then there are days when pain comes without warning.  The other day I was blindsided when I saw the place the Schoolmaster first took me out to dinner.  I wept in the car.  It seemed pathetic, but I couldn't help it.  

   I have turned to my Father in all of this.  He has drawn closer to me than He ever has before.  

   Here's one blessing:  My conscience is clear about this whole situation.  I hoped.  I prayed.  I humbly asked for something.  The Lord gave him to me for a while.  When we dated, to the best of my ability I did what I knew to be right.  I have nothing to be ashamed of.  I hoped, and I have to give up hope now.  But---I don't regret it.  I have no reason to hang my head in shame.  The Lord gave---and the Lord took away.  As my Creator and rightful Master, and as the All-powerful King of Love and Light,...well, He does as He pleases.  There is no darkness in Him.  None of His character has the faintest shadow of evil.

   I don't believe in a God who is capricious and stingy, because that is not the God of the Bible.  

   "What then shall we say to these things?  If God is for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare His own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?"  (Romans 8:31 ESV)  

   Not "all things," as in, "everything we want."  What kind of parent gives his child everything they whine for, or even demand?  Not a good one, that's for sure.  Those kind of kids are self-centered brats who are being allowed to let their sin nature take control of everything else.  Their bodies for one thing.  Kids like that won't make healthy choices for their bodies.  Their minds: they are almost incapable of thinking of or doing anything for someone else.  And that is going to lead to trouble the instant they step out into the real world.  Their souls: how could a self-absorbed boy or girl feel any desire for God, or even understand their need of Him?  As long as they have their distractions, they will gladly choose to never think of Him at all.  Love often looks different from what we expect.  The God-fearing parent stands firm when their child wants something that they know will hurt them, or even just be unhealthy for them.  

   The love of a Friend to another Friend can sometimes mean telling them the truth even when they don't want to hear it.  Or confronting them when their behavior is wrong.  And sometimes being a friend means stepping back and letting them feel the consequences of their sinful or foolish choices.  "A real friend would help them no matter what! A friend loves at all times, right?" you might argue.  Yes.  A friend does love at all times.  And real love means you don't shield them from self-inflicted consequences.  How else will they learn?  If they will not listen to truth they might get mad at you and choose not to be your friend anymore.  But if that's the case, they didn't want a true Friend.  A true friend loves their friend too much to feed them soothing lies, or to condone them when they tell lies to themselves.  

   Bit of a tangent there, but I think that's important.  God has shown Himself to be a whole lot smarter than me when it comes to, oh, everything.  In Scripture we see it everywhere.  And so it is written on every page of my life's story, too.  If I'd written my life's story, I'd have been a self-centered girl who had everything she ever wanted at a moment's notice.  I would have fit the "mean girl," trope; popular, stylish, spiteful, vengeful, and dominating.  And who knows where I would be now if that had been my life?  I would have none of the things that I hold dear now.  Things that really matter, like a relationship with Christ, a loving circle of trust in my family, and dear friends who pick me up when I am down.  Or things like the joy I have found in helping and serving others.  Things like popularity and style are fleeting pleasures---they can't even compare to the treasures I have now.  Those things will last for eternity.  I don't know what is going to happen between then and now, but I have been promised a happy FOREVER after.  

   And speaking of stories, that's another thing I've learned through all this.  Having the Schoolmaster be mine was what I wanted in my life's story.  It's true that I clung to that hope.  I don't think the hope was wrong, necessarily.  But it's become clear to me over the past two weeks that now that God has said no, I have my answer.  It is not to be.  It's time to accept that and to stop hoping.  It was all well and good to persistently hope when I was waiting, but I have the answer now.  The answer is no.  If I keep hoping now, than I will be trying to pull the pen from the Author's hand and write my story the way I want it to go.  Not only won't it work, it'll put distance in my relationship to the Author.  I won't listen to Him or obey Him if I'm actively working against Him.  

"If I'm wise I will walk away, and gladly.
But sadly, I'm not wise!  It's hard to talk away the mem'ries that you prize..."

---"In His Eyes," from "Jekyll and Hyde." 

   I thought of those lines from that song, and I realized that I would never be able to move on properly until I stopped hoping.  That meant I needed to not only give the Schoolmaster back to God, but all my past dreams, all my present hopes, and even the memories.  All of them.  

   I obeyed.  At first I didn't want to, but I did.  I knelt down and with tears I gave everything back to my Father.  Every memory that I prized.  Every Moment.  I let go of all of my dreams and gave them to Him.  

   When I stood up I felt free.  I felt a new chapter beginning, and I actually felt a little excited.  Anything---absolutely anything can happen now.  

   But more than that...I have peace somewhere deep inside me that my Father is pleased with me.  Most of the time I think of God as my gracious Master; and He is, but that is not all He is.  

   Jesus Christ laid down His life to absorb God's wrath at my sins.  God the Father was the one who sent the Son on His mission, who provided the way for sinners to be forgiven.  The Holy Spirit has been given to me as a gift, to protect me and to reassure me that I belong to God as His daughter.  

   I am God's adopted Daughter.  He has made me royalty.  He trains me as a warrior of the Light.  He bids me to share in His joy.  He has told me to dry my eyes and to despair no more.  He is no longer only my Liege-Lord and King, but my Father.  

   I don't have the answers why.  I don't need them.  He is the Answer.  

   I don't have to understand to obey.  I gladly obey.  I gladly give my heart to the One who has been determined to capture my heart since before the dawn of time, and who has sworn to love me for all of eternity.  He loves me.  More than anyone else ever could.  I am safe in His love.  Only God can truly heal a broken heart.  He's healing mine.  

   Oh!  And one last blessing I should mention.  During that hard conversation, the Schoolmaster told me that he wanted to still be my friend.  He wanted to speak with me when he saw me at church, and wanted me to feel free to do the same.  

   I know that to a lot of people that would seem unthinkable or even mean to suggest.  I know that for most people, friendship is impossible after a romantic relationship ends.  

   But it is possible, and here's how I know it is: Friendship is a different kind of love than romantic love.  The Schoolmaster and I were truly Friends before all this began.  We know each other and we trust each other.  We have a lot in common and we enjoy similar things and even similar beliefs.  We each think certain kinds of questions are important and worth discussing, even if we don't agree on the answers.  C.S. Lewis wrote a whole chapter about Friendship-love in his marvelous book, "The Four Loves."  

   Sadly, people today don't really know what true Friendship is because few people experience it.  They get into romantic relationships without friendship coming first, which sometimes ends up working out, but when breakups happen they literally no longer know how to act around each other, and have no choice but to avoid each other.  I can tell you now, as painful as this season has been for me, it would have been double the pain if I had lost my Friend from this.  But we are still Friends.  When I'm with him at church or in group settings I am completely myself around him.  We still banter and argue and talk about important things and listen to what's going on in each other's life.  

   ...So I'm not losing him.  Not really.  I believe we'll always be Friends.  We'll share in God's joy when He comes back for His children.  

   It actually excites me to think that this situation is living proof for all I believe about Friendship.  When people take it for granted that they're losing their best friend from a breakup, I can now point to my own life and say, "It doesn't have to be."  

   It can only happen if both parties decide to put in the effort to remain Friends.  Friendship, like everything else of value, you must work to maintain.  I can assure you personally though, that it is worth it.  

   I'm so grateful.  

   And you know what else?  I'll fall in love again someday.  That's exciting to me.  And even if I don't, I'll get stronger on my own.  I'll live a life of devoted service to my King, and pour my life into others, to inspire them, to encourage them, to help them through their own valleys.  

   And that is enough for me.  

"There are days when I feel so afraid 
I can hardly remember to breathe.
When reality crashes in wave after wave
Pulling me farther beneath.
So what's the point in planning for a future
If it all can be stolen away?  
It's all I can do to hold on and survive 
When the colors have faded to gray.
But my children need so much more from me
And they give me the strength to go on.
Whatever may come---

All that matters now
Is where I go from here.
There's an easier way
If I live for today.
The beating of my heart 
Is all that matters.

There's an easier way 
If I live for today.
The singing in my heart
Is all that matters."  

---"All That Matters," from "Finding Neverland."  
  
~Cadenza

To An Elsa I Know

   You've lived a lonely life.  

   You've been hurt.  

   You've been misunderstood.

   You've taught yourself to conceal.  

   You've lost dear ones and are not sure who to trust.  

   You are afraid.

   You are running.  

   You're divided in your mind because your power is raw and wild and untamed.  Part of you loves this gift and can't understand why people don't seem to see the beauty of it.  The other part of you is afraid because you've hurt people with it in the past, and they give you distance.

   So you've built an ice palace around yourself in attempt to break free from everything.  You've shut the gates and vowed, "They'll never see me cry."

   Yet you pace the floor with your hands to your temples while fears chase themselves around in your mind.  Frost hangs like a mist around you in your haze of confusion.

   When I knock at the gates you meet me, but you hold me at arm's length and pretend that everything is fine before sending me away.

   Or you will talk---but you won't listen to what I can tell you.

   You won't let me help you.  

   Maybe you think I don't understand, but I do.

   Maybe you suppose that I don't care, but you know I do. 

   Maybe you don't want to hear the truth.  

   The truth can hurt at first, but the Truth will set you free.

   Truth burns away dross, but it refines the gold.

   I want to tell you the truth because I want you to be free!  

   I want to tell you the truth because I want you to get rid of the dross that is freezing your heart and poisoning your power.

   I want to tell you the truth because I see the gold in you.  I see the magnificent potential in you, and it thrills me to think of all that you are capable of. 

   Because I believe in you.  

   But if you will not listen, what can I do? 

   You don't have to learn from me.  Learn from Elsa.  

   Elsa thought all along that to control her power meant to stop it from happening, even though the Trolls told her that her power would only grow.

   When he said she must learn to control it, he meant bring it under control.  Not hide it.  Not to be afraid of it.  Not to be ashamed of it.

   She misunderstood.  Her power was something she was born with.  Perhaps there was magic in her ancestry.  It was a gift; but somewhere along the line she began thinking of it as a curse.  When her parents, the only ones who knew her secret, were taken from her she felt that she must carry the secret alone...as a monarch!  A heavy and daunting task.

   Of course her secret was discovered.  Was it her sister's fault for losing her temper in public and shouting out insults at Elsa in her frustration and hurt?  Was it Elsa's fault for not getting out of the situation fast enough, rising to the bait, and losing her self-control?  To even ask whose fault it is misses the point.  

   A more important thing to point out---in all stories, including the stories we are writing by our lives every day---is that in the end, it doesn't matter who has the most blame.  The truth is we are all to blame.  No amount of argument or excusing can ever purge us of the percentage of fault that each of us contribute to problems.  There are consequences for every action we take.  Even just 1% of contributing blame still carries its consequences and its ripple effect on everything else.  To quarrel about who has the most blame is pointless and childish, like all the characters from "Into The Woods," rounding on each other and pointing fingers and screeching, "See, it's YOUR fault!!" 

   That doesn't make the problems go away.  It doesn't solve anything.  In fact it makes things worse.  

   The only acceptable thing we can do in this life when we make rotten choices is to face up to them, take responsibility for them, and then do our best to make them right.  

   Once her secret is out, Elsa runs.  Her nerves, strained for so long, finally snap.  She doesn't want to fight, so she chooses flight.  From everyone she loves, away from all counsel, and away from her responsibilities.  

   Just like me once.  

   Exactly like me.  

   I saw my face in her every expression.  

   Finally she reflects.  She sees no other option for herself.  But then, she had no one with her to consult or to reassure her or offer help.  She'd run away from everything.  

   When I watched this scene the first time in the theater, emotions welled up in my heart and a lump came to my throat.  I braced myself, for I was certain she would turn vengeful and wicked.

   But no...

   In the shock of sudden freedom, Elsa lets herself use her gift.  She creates swirling patterns of snow and builds ice into intricate, delicate designs.  She even sparks personality into a snowman that she builds, infusing within him a remembered friend from childhood.  She lets herself be who she is, and she loves it.  For once she lets herself enjoy the beauty of her gift, and she casts off the bondage of some of the lies she's always believed.

   In the theater when the score melted into a major key, tears began pouring down my face.  That may have been the first time a movie ever moved me to actual weeping.  

   She makes a vow never to go back, dismissing her responsibilities as ruler of Arendelle along with the bondage of her wrong thinking.  So she builds an ice castle around herself and closes the gates.

   Her sister finds her and apologizes for her side of the fault.  She reminds Elsa of her responsibilities, promises to help her figure out a solution, reassuring her of her love for her and pleading with Elsa to let her be part of her life again.  

   Elsa is convinced that this is her fate and is scared that she will only make things worse if she goes back.  She's afraid that she'll hurt her sister again, and part of her---the part of her that's used to taking all the blame for things---feels that the right thing to do is send Anna away and to abandon her kingdom.  It's an understandable conclusion, and certainly is pitiable...but that doesn't make it right.  Flawed thinking can seem glamorous for a while, but it's still faulty and treacherous, and it always leads to more wrong choices.  She refuses to try to make things right.  She discourteously throws her sister out, shoving onto her shoulders the entire responsibility.

   Eventually the real world catches up to Elsa and drags her back by main force to take responsibility for her actions.  Having dismissed and distanced herself (literally) from those that love her, she's taken advantage of and almost killed by a wicked man.  Only an act of true love and sacrifice made on her behalf saves her.

   Love saved her.

   Love lifts the winter, the confusion, and the lies.  

   Love casts out her fear.  

   Love transformed her raw power into beautiful strength.  

   And once she righted her mistakes and used her love and her power to bless her people, everyone loved her for who she was, not some idea of a perfect monarch.   

   My dear Elsa, you're still running.  You're trying to live in a reality of your own.  You're finding that's a lonely place to be.  That's because your personal world is governed by rules that don't work in the world that we all live in.  I know you like it in there.  You find an illusion of safety and peace in it.  But that world, by its very nature, is one that none of us can share with you.  You can live in it for a while, but it's a lonely place.  You can't have it both ways.  I know.  Because I once did the same thing.  

   I once thought that if I could only shut my eyes to my responsibilities and from the world that hurt me and the consequences of my actions that I would be able to heal myself and be happy.  It didn't work.  Trying to feed off my own personality was maddening, because I couldn't manufacture joy.  I couldn't love myself enough to satisfy my heart's desire.  I thirsted for beauty and for fulfillment, for safety and for adventure, for control and for resting in someone else's strength.  I hungered for joy and the overwhelming lust to be right.  I wanted to be a one-man army, rebellious against authority and free to make selfish decisions, and yet I also wanted to be loved by everyone and sympathized with.  My desires chased themselves around in my head and played upon my fears and my wounds.  It was horrible.  There were times when I thought I would go crazy.  Sometimes in the despair of my conflicting desires I gazed into my soul and found in it only unanswerable riddles, pain, conflicting desires, everything steeped in sin, and a chained beast, frothing and raging and straining at her chains.  I was idolizing myself, and that idol could not satisfy.  The more I gave to her, the more she desired.  I raged against my Maker in my misery.  I tried to blame anyone and anything else.  The very sound of the Word of God being read stirred hatred in me...I shut everyone out and suffered, imprisoning myself in my own mind.  It was hell.  I was exactly like Gollum.  There were times when the desire to end my life tantalized me with an evil fascination.

   I think sometimes you perceive me as a nice, sweet little woman who lives a charmed life or something.  Perhaps you think I'm a hypocrite, or that I want to control you.

   No.  

   I don't want to control you.  I don't want to cram you into some mold that whittles down your personality until there's nothing left.  I've actually been down that road myself, and believe me I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

   I hope and pray that one day you will find that once you surrender your dross to your Lord's furnace, He will bring you out of it more yourself than you ever were before.  

   Oh, my dear girl...running from everything, locking yourself in a tower with no stairs!  

   Oh, my sweet friend---screaming out your pain, but refusing to be healed.  

   I can't save you.  I can't heal you.  I can't make the problems or the grief or the loneliness go away.  Only One can do that.  

   Sometimes I think we forget that our desires and wounds and pain are meant to drive us to Him.  I think we forget that most of what we truly desire is not wrong...the irony is that so much of what we truly desire: fulfilling love, resting in someone's strength, adventure, safety, (yes, both of them at once) meaning, hope...they can only be found in their fullness in Jesus Christ.  

   When I thirsted for beauty, I shut out the Author of beauty.  When I cried out for Love, I slammed the door in the face of the One who gave His life to redeem me.  When I cried alone because no one listened to me or sought me out, I turned away from Him who was right there with me and who was already listening.  When I longed for meaning and for adventure, I ignored the Great Author who writes all stories and who is Himself Love and Light and Strength.  

   Go to Him.  He'll never cast out the one who comes to Him for mercy.  I know...you're afraid that He'll shame you or hold you at arm's length or send you out to work off your debt.  But that's not the God of the Bible, is it?  He is God, not a man.  He goes against the normal human pattern because His nature is infinitely higher than that of fallen man.  

   He won't shame you.  Jesus already bore the shame and guilt of God's righteous anger toward all of our sin.

   He won't frighten you or threaten you if you cry out to Him.  He already delivered all of His wrath on a willing Recipient.  There isn't any left!!  Jesus has already paid for everything, including our guilt and shame.  Why would anyone in this world suffer in sin and guilt when they could be free? 

   He is the Father from whom every family on earth receives its name.  He is a Father to the fatherless.  He is the Healer.  The Word says He brings healing to His children, and satisfies their souls with good.  That means fulfillment, joy, and love.  

   My dear girl, I love you more than you probably know.  I will never, ever shut you out.  You can shut me out if you like, but my door latch will always open to you.  Good can wear a wry face, Truth can hurt, and Love must be tough.  But that's because I love you too much to leave you in lies when I know the truth.  As one beggar to another, I know where the Bread of Life is.  I know where the Living Water is.  And we don't have to just come once and then leave.  He invites us to feast every day on His kindness.  

   So come.  Be truly freed.  The Truth will set you free.  

 Love Always,
~Cadenza

August (Part 1)

   Yes, prepare yourself for another (LONG) post about the weather and changing seasons.  I don't know why this is so important to me, but it is.  It seems to me that there's so much richness in the earth around us, and I for one, crave more of it.  I often feel trapped in this city of concrete and asphalt, with its exoskeleton of metal and steel, and all our cold devices of plastic and glass that we can't go without even for an hour.  The Earth is warm and rich and beautiful.  It's a growing, living thing.  I soak each season, each month, into me.  I look.  I listen.  I think.  I feel.  Each season and month has a different feel to it.  And up until now I've been half-blind, half resentful of the feelings of August.  This year I'm not.  This year I am delighted by the charms of August, and I want to tell you why.  

   Summer has always been my least favorite season.  I don't like the triple-digit temperatures.  I don't like the air so humid that you almost have to wade through it.  I strongly dislike feeling sticky with sweat.  I hate how blazing and strident the sunlight is.  It's too brash, it's too obvious.  It's almost like having your eyes assaulted like your ears would be if someone were to sneak up behind you and shout in your ears.  

   In stories, summer is usually the time when good things happen.  How many stories have you read that are set in summer?  "That" summer.  The summer before this happened, or the summer after something else happened.  "That," summer where the boy met the girl.  Summer romances, or exciting vacations, or the summer you thought would be boring until...fill in the blank.  In the stories, summer brings healing to hurting hearts, and adventure and meaning to restless hearts.  I see why the stories are that way, of course.  There's no school in the summertime.  And there's something about the summers of your life before jobs and real life set in, before college and responsibilities.  You're old enough to know things, and still have time to care and to explore. 

   Don't get the impression that I'm being stuck up about the tropes of summertime stories.  Tropes are tropes for a reason.  They make good stories.  I'm a bit rueful, perhaps, but only because my experiences with summer have been very different.

   Each season's beauty fills me with longing.  Each season seems to promise me something, though it never delivers on its promise.  Springtime promises Resurrection.  Of new, glorious, better Life after death.  

   Winter promises Adventure.  The biting wind, the bare branches, and the starry sky fills me with the longing for adventure.  For more than the life I'm living.  For something to seek after and find, alongside comrades.  Something to fight for, live for, and die for.

   Autumn gives the promise of Immortality.  I'll have to come back to that later.  

   Summer promises Fulfillment. 

   The promises overlap, of course.  But they specially overlap when the seasons begin to blend.  

   Now, when I was younger, summer had an entirely different meaning to me.  *Insert wavy screen and commence flashback...*  (Kidding.  Please don't.)  

   Summer meant no school, which was cause for much rejoicing.  But summer also brought the heat, and it also meant that everything else in my life came to a screeching halt.  Once the---what I call the May-hem---of the month of May had finally resolved all performances and ceremonies and recitals, June was the slam of solid impact and the resulting whiplash.  I always loved the activities I was involved in, and before June was over I was missing them again. 

    In the ninth grade, I was able to join in the adult ministries at my church.  Incidentally, Junior High was a miserable experience for me...you've aged out of your old activities, but haven't grown into the adult ministries yet.  And usually too young to contribute to the youth group activities.  Anyway, in the ninth grade I began attending the adult choir and orchestra, and hand bells, when we were fortunate enough to have those rehearsals.  I entered the youth group, and was also involved in AWANA as a leader.  And then I was enrolled in classes outside of my home, specifically for home-schoolers.  Most of my high school years I played in a youth orchestra program with my violin, too.  I loved all of these activities.  But the ones I loved most by far were the rehearsals in the church. 

   Sure, the other activities had meaning and enjoyment for me.  But classes were hard, and homework was a lot of pressure, on top of all the other difficult schoolwork that I struggled through alone at home.  I loved the youth orchestra program because I loved the music and the conductors and the high standard to which we were held.  However, the other children there were not people I could make friends with easily.  I always found a knot of girls to hang out with, and perhaps one or two of those friendships have remained.  But the rest were boisterous worldlings that had nothing in common with me.  

   Yes, I did love youth group.  I loved the sound teaching, and I enjoyed being with kids my age, and all around my age!  I enjoyed the atmosphere...sort of.  

   I knew I was different from the other kids.  I stuck out like a sore thumb.  I tried to make friends with them.  I tried to talk with them and listen to them, but for the most part none of them wanted anything to do with me.  The things they talked about, the places they went, the things they did were completely foreign to me.  I couldn't be friends with them because they wouldn't let me.  You know how high school girls are; they pursue their own agenda.  They're busy trying to be or trying to hang out with or get in good with the Popular ones.  The ones who did things, who had resources, and who actually got together with others for activities.  The ninth grade girls fussed themselves up with stylish clothes and were consumed with volleyball or other sports.  They prattled endlessly on about people I didn't know and about things I couldn't relate to.  It was hard being a short girl with glasses and braces and bangs and shapeless jeans and t-shirts.  No one reached out to me because everyone was so busy chasing after their own agenda.

   In some ways, youth group was a lot harder than the orchestra program or the classes outside school.  In those places I knew I was different, and I could at least eat with or sit with girls I knew.  I could just listen and maybe contribute to the conversation if they were talking about a subject.  It didn't matter too much if I was different there.  In youth group, I wanted to be one of the other girls, or at least to be friends with them.  But they ignored me.  There were girls that I sensed had more to them than they let on, but the pressure was on me to reach out to them.  They gave me nothing to go on, so it was uphill work.  

   It filled me at times with unspeakable anxiety and dread.  I wanted so desperately to penetrate their shells and become a friend to any of them, if they would only let me in.  But since they wouldn't, I was often horribly afraid that there was something wrong with or repulsive about me as a person.  It was exhausting and emotionally draining, especially for me as an introvert.  I was so very shy back then.  There were times when I felt so painfully self-conscious that I would retreat to the bathroom and literally hide in one of the stalls until it was time for youth group to start. 

   Youth group had its joys, too.  When the group of girls my age met after the sermon to discuss it and to share prayer requests, they were willing to open up a bit and be more vulnerable.  But once we said amen and left that room, things went on just as they had before.      
  
   I tell you all of this to serve as a backdrop for what I really found enjoyment in: the choir and orchestra rehearsals at church.  Those were the highlights of my week, and what got me through difficult days of impossible school concepts and piles of homework.  There was spiritual refreshment in each song we sang or played.  The beauty of them washed over me, purging away the clinging dread of every week.  It let me out of the Normal, out of the ordinary, and into a world of beauty and light and color and music.  A world of laughter, where adults were silly and told funny stories and teased each other.  A world where friendships and comradeship existed between people despite the age differences.  Where adults treated me as a friend and as a person of my own standing.  Everyone was respectful of everyone else, and everyone shared what was on their hearts.  I found comfort, real understanding, and spiritual teaching there.  There was this joy that permeated the whole atmosphere.  It tied everyone together, and everything was colored through with it.  Everything from the beat-up music stands, to the smell of the old music sheets, to the clouds outside the windows.  When we looked into each others' faces we saw a glow of understanding in the others' eyes.  We comrades in this ministry, those of us who are here late on a Sunday afternoon, or lingering late on a Wednesday night...we know.  We know this world and its beauty.  No one out there, none of the rest of them have any clue what they're missing.  But we're here together.  We know.   

   Keep in mind that this was my experience for all the school year of each year of high school.  School went from bad to worse, the other orchestra became more and more demanding, and youth group was hard.  But when I had choir and orchestra rehearsals to get me through each week, I blossomed and grew.  

   And now, imagine June.  The sudden absence of all the things that had filled my days was like having someone yank a rug out from under me.  It flung me on my face.  It was a welcome relief at first, but the Nothing that replaced it ate into my mind and my heart.  Youth group went through the summer, thankfully, but with no rehearsals to balance it, the gloom and discouragement gnawed away at me unhindered.  

   During those summers, I maybe had a few once-a-week jobs, but I had no friends to hang out with, nowhere to go (I couldn't drive anyway), and I hated being outside in the heat and the humidity, where the bugs pounced on me the moment I stepped out the door.

   On the positive side, one thing I have in common with Harry Potter is that I hated summer vacation more than any other time of the year, just like he did!  

   Each summer month grew harder as the slow weeks dragged by like frozen syrup.  I longed for adventure, for new activities, but morning after morning I woke up and nothing happened.  And nothing kept on happening.  I made up stories in my mind of hidden passageways leading to hidden rooms, or of doors into magical worlds.  I loved stories about summer time and of neighborhood "gangs," of children solving mysteries or discovering treasure or what not.  I loved stories about dogs and animals that changed children's lives, (usually over the summer) like "Shiloh."  I dreamed of faraway places.  I dreamed of forests and endless trails and of following a Road somewhere, anywhere.  I lived in the books I read and wrote in my journals.  I made up stories in my head...and I missed keenly those days when pretend playing in the backyard was just as real as the yard itself.  

   The beauty of summer always mocked me before.  I had pictures in my mind of wide open meadows with long grass and wildflowers.  I loved the idea of mountains, and the idea of the beach, and of course I loved swimming.  I had pictures of sailing on ships or boats, of water-skiing, or of paddling down a river in a canoe.  I had fuzzy mental concepts of "summer camps," and of water balloon fights and campfires.  I had pictures in my mind of friends in a car, driving down the road with the windows down, all singing at the tops of their voices.  I had this idea of going roller skating, or shopping, or going to the movies, or of buying ice-cream late at night after youth group like the popular crowd occasionally did.  

   But what I experienced was burning pavement, and sticky air.  What actually happened were days and days stretching by full of nothing.  Days when I wandered and prowled about my house, feeling stir-crazy and discontent, but with nowhere to release my energy.  

   June was hot and boring.  July was made up of dog-days of unbearable heat and restless longing.  By the time August dragged in I felt like I was going crazy.  Crazy with longing, crazy with loneliness, driven mad by the Promise of Summer that was mocking me because it never came true.  I was dreading the opening of school again, but I was so desperate for my friends and for beauty and for interaction that my mind could sort of block it out.  

   By the time August was over and activities were ready to start again I was dying to go back.  By that time I wanted August over and done with.  As it dragged its slow days onward, I mentally kicked it out the door when September finally arrived.  

   I wasn't expecting to explain all of this when I started this post tonight.  I think it was necessary to provide a good understanding of where I'm coming from.  Perhaps the best thing to do will be to call it a night, publish what I have, and finish the original idea I had for the August post in a part 2!


~Cadenza        

I'm Back!

   Hello, faithful readers!  Guess what?  I'M BACK!  And yes, that is so worth putting into all caps.

   Usually after a long absence from my blog, my first paragraph is a sheepish apology for being away for so long.  But this time I really have a good reason.  I haven't posted for over half a year because I inadvertently locked myself out of my blog!  I was starting to be afraid I'd never be able to get into my little blog again, which would have been truly sad.

   Oh, it is so nice to be blogging again!

   I'm still at Chick-Fil-A, and still loving it.  This summer has been a most enjoyable one so far.  Having somewhere to swim makes a lot of difference.  It's something to look forward to after a long shift.  Yes, and I work mostly opening shifts now...which means that I have to be at work and clocked in, ready to start at 5:30 am.  Yup.  

   I don't know if I've ever mentioned it before, but I am not a morning person.  Pretty much every morning when my phone gives out its little default tone that serves as my (first of three) alarm I pry my eyes open, groan, stumble out of bed to hit the snooze and question my life's choices that have led up to this.  I hit the snooze, which helps to keep me from falling back into deep sleep.  When the third alarm goes off, I know it's five o'clock, and that I have to get up.  

   I have learned that all I need is 15 minutes to get ready for the day, and in a pinch, 9 minutes.  It's that bad.  It takes me 15 minutes to get to work, so if I leave by 5:15, I'm generally on time.  

   I hate being up at that hour.  It generally takes me two to three hours (without caffeine) to really wake up.  Each day I think I must be crazy to have chosen these hours when I knew that I am not an early bird.  And yet after the lunch rush, everything starts to calm down at the store.  We have time to recover, stock supplies, and generally pick up the pieces from all the chaos of the hour and a half before.  I can stay busy until the afternoon lull sets in, and then, boom!  I clock out, and I'm done for the rest of the day!  At 2 pm.  It's great!  I eat a little snack, and then the afternoon is mine.  

   You see, the alternative would be either to work afternoons or work nights.  I was against nights from the start.  Believe it or not, readers, I actually have what might be called a social life!  I need my evenings to go places and do activities.  And it is *so* nice to be trying to make plans with someone and be able to say, "Hey, I'm off work at 2:30 everyday; what time works for you?"  I can run errands or go swimming in the afternoons, and it's wonderful.  Besides...the afternoon lull lasts from 2 to 4ish, or even 5pm.  It's possible to run out of things to do.  I know a lot of fun can happen in that time frame, but I'd be falling asleep on my feet.  I couldn't bear it.  If I'm going to be at work, at least let me be busy!  So, really, morning shifts were the best option.  Even though I question that every morning.  

   Yes, well.  I started with work-related stuff because a full-time job does take up most of my time.  (Surprise.)  I'm still going ballroom dancing on some Friday nights, and have gotten a few friends interested in coming with us.  My church actually has a Sunday-School class for singles now!  I have waited so long for there to be a real ministry for singles!  It took a few years...you know, to get singles again.  Most of the singles around my age group left for good once they left for college.  They've been scarce, and then many of them had to go off and get married..!  But we have a fair-sized crowd, and the teachers of the class have started this thing where we meet together in one of their homes for fellowship, discussion, and naturally, food.  It gives me something to look forward to in the middle of the week.  It's a great way to get to know each other; without all the formality or time-restraint of the church's setting.  

   In a week or two, the church's choir and orchestra will be starting up again for the Christmas semester!  I am so excited...even a little surprised at how excited I am.  I needed the break over the summer, but I have really missed it!  Besides, Christmas music!!  

   I think this will have to do for tonight.  I do have work in the morning, and got lots going on tomorrow.  I think if I try to tackle anything descriptive or thought-provoking than I will be staying up entirely too late.  Until the next time, my faithful readers, I am ever your

~Cadenza