Sanctity in Refuge

I sit here in the rain tonight wondering why I have let my writing nonchalantly disappear piece by piece this summer. It's 1 August 2007, hard to believe the day was today and I'm only a few short steps away to starting the next half of my college life, and my writing, as well the adventure I had in pursuit this summer, well, it falls under the category of 'empty.'
For most who read this, they'll probably be the avid readers of some of the writing I've done (I'm no author yet... just a measly, starving, simple writer) and you'll understand that this whole blog thing is new to me. I've never been an avid diary writer or journal keeper, but I do have a certain lime green notebook that I have somehow managed to keep a hold of the past six months and occasionally jot an idea down in, even a poem or two, and low and behold, possibly the start to a beautiful novel. Needless, I think this beautiful blog thing might just be the refuge I am looking for. I'm not sure what words will end up pouring out of my fingertips into the bright abyss of my computer screen, but I feel already, that they will.
As I've said, I'm no author, but I write big. I write that my words will touch the soul of just one person; a deep enough touch that I can keep writing because my beautiful Creator chooses to speak through me. It's as a poet speaks through words that I long to speak beauty, hope, peace, faith, and love. And in these things may we all find sanctity.
I heard today on a radio spot something about joyful hope and it spurred a movement in me. I've talked with several friends about this before, and listened to many sermons on the hope we are to have in our creator. But how many times is the word joyful put in front of it? Life, like my writing and adventure, sometimes feels like the needle is always pointing to empty; but how many times have you run out of gas (without realizing it) and just laughed at yourself for forgetting to fill up? (I almost did today.) It's in that laughter where we find joy... and that joy should be placed above all us. God tells us that no matter the situation or whether life feels like it's on pause, or pointing to empty, that he has our back. He's the one giving us hope and a future. (Jer. 29:11) So you see, we have the hope placed before us and all we have to do is joyfully live for it. A joyful hope. Can you imagine a world full of that? What if one person lived everything in joyful hope, even when she stepped out of bed in the morning with a massive migraine and a full plate, she just smiled and said, today is a day of joyful hope? She would find sanctity. She would find refuge in the God who would guide her. She would be the white steel chair, firmly, yet beautifully placed on the sands of the sea. And her joyful hope would spread to another, and maybe another, and maybe, just maybe across that sea to another place and time. If we have joyful hope, we hold the sea in our hand. And if we hold the sea in our hand... then the waves will always be constant. Our God is big like that. And beautiful.

I'm sure my writing won't always be deep and poetic, and ambiguous like this... and I'm sure as the days go by I'll even write about my life and who I am. But for now, I write the words that flow.

To my God and to my love....
Always