Strange noises in the night, even here, in the middle of somewhere… and I find I am found, no longer lost, and I wonder what that might mean. What do I do, now? Could it really be that it was easier, back then, when I was in desperation, praying that my heart no longer hurt, hurt with the pains of despair, with the anguish of he who has all but thrown life away? Christ picked me up from a very low place, but now I am finally beginning to feel secure in my faith — secure enough not to need to constantly beseech Him above to save me upon my dying. But back then, I had a plan, didn’t I? Step one: get myself saved. And now, now I find I didn’t think any further ahead than that. There are strange noises in the night, even here, in the middle of somewhere… and I momentarily flash back to the me who would have been so terrified of unknowns like this, who would need Christ so to calm his heart, for it could not be calmed in any way he knew how — and the desperate prayer of he who had become mentally unstable. But now, all I need do is wait a moment, and discern it is merely the neighbor, moving something around outside.
I never planned for success. In my youth, I had great dreams, but I neither believed I would succeed or fail, as I really had no idea of the taste of either. Then came the troubles, and I understood very deeply what it was for me to dwell in the latter, to fail, and fail, and fail. Jesus Christ then came and saved me not merely in some faraway “next world,†but in this one, too, though it was by no means a short process. So long did it take, that years after I gave my heart to him, it snuck up on me: I suddenly find myself whole, and I really did not see it coming. And so, I ask, what do I do? For I am no saint, and cannot do the more drastic of paths He laid out, to sell all I have, give it to the poor, and go and follow Him. And I wish not to go back to the desperation of the lost. Do I wait, to see a sign? Or is it merely corruption in me that wants to see something like that (for He said He would only show the sign of Jonah)? Perhaps there is no easy resolution to this question. Here, perhaps the sign of life itself: now I have reentered the great stream of being. Now I have enough to go my way, and make something of myself.
Normality to me is strange. But I imagine I’ll get used to it. My stab at this (life) is maybe just to follow the Golden Rule wherever I go, and see what I would have done unto me, and do so to others. Other than that, I imagine the Lord would have of me something of which I as yet know not. But maybe I am finally ready to do it.