Loud & Clear

I felt it building.  It still is.  All of this, working it's way up, escalating.  I am hearing again.  Listening again.

I was made for so much more.  I can only hope you know that feeling.  The feeling of finding yourself in the very place you belong, whether in nature it is physical or emotional or spiritual.  No one else can understand quite how you feel when you're there.  They misunderstand.  They see differently than you do. If you're lucky, there are a select few who see how your countenance changes.  They see the light spark in your eyes.  They know.  They see it.

My heart has been listening, therefore hearing.

And last night, as I drove out into the dark, I heard His forewarning.

I am about to get real loud.


I am about to show you something your heart needs to see.


Listen, my love.  I am about to speak loud and clear.


My prayer as I sat in the parking lot was that the truth I've learned would not apply to what I was about to encounter.  I ached to be taken off guard.  To be surprised, pleasantly.  For dirty truth to be cast off by light and by love.

It is not until you get a glimpse of what God wants for you and from you that you realize how far everything else is off the mark.

He answered my prayers last night.  Through the words of others.

When she opened her mouth, the very first word, I had to pause.  I forgot what I was there to do.  It seemed as though she caught my eye and I just nodded, lost in the rhythm of her voice.

Inhale, exhale.


The rhythm of words synced with my own and I felt the hiccups ebb.

There was truth.  Stirring in that room.  I felt it, heavy and reminding.

I turned to walk up the stairs, laughing.  I caught it then -- the light in his eyes.

How long it's been since I've seen such light.

Blame it on the stage lights reflecting off his glasses.

But it was there.

What you know does not apply here.

I felt at a loss.  All this love I have in my heart, coursing through my veins, for people.  This culture.  The draw I feel, as if in myself there is a magnet.  Drawn by force.

Words echoed.  Pierced.  Confession rippled and repentance cast an incandescent light.

Was that clear enough?  Did I speak loudly enough?


A veil was pulled and suddenly I found myself staring at my own battle.  Turmoil I had never recognized, acknowledged, as such.  Under my cardigan I felt the warmth and protection of armor.

Loud and clear, You were heard.

And there is so much hope swollen here in my chest I can barely breathe.  Reaching, I find myself with a strengthened desire to find such light.