eyes

I see signs of life in her twinkling gaze. I can't look away. She slowly transfers life from God, to her, to me, and I can feel it in the depths of my innermost being. 

She makes me cry tears of joy because I don't have to explain myself. No justifying, no words needed, just deep sighs of relief from being understood. I slowly exhale and let out the breath I didn't know I was holding in. 

She restores my hope in humanity.

She has eyes like wildflowers and a heart like shattered glass with small shards missing, but rays of sun shining through.  

"Keep your head up, you will be alright," she reminds me, with no words at all. 

I will never understand why God uses people to speak to us. Why He uses broken vessels to carry around His living water as if it won't leak everywhere we go. 

"Stop trying to patch yourself up with temporary adhesive and a subpar bandage, it doesn't work. Make more room for me, I want in," He says. 

I hear God clearly as I type these words, inspiring me to love people more. To love them when things get hard, and when things come naturally. 

Throughout this season, I've asked God more than a handful of times where He's been. Lately, I have existential crises more often than not, and more questions than answers, but every time I begin to even slightly doubt His presence, He gives me someone's eye contact. It reminds me that He never shifts His gaze, that He is always near. He opens my own eyes to see someone's grace-filled dance, someone's contagious laugh, someone's precious tears. 

Sweet wrinkles in her face remind me to smile more. Heaven comes to Earth when we laugh together and God reminds me that it'll all be okay. 

Maybe God actually wants us to leak wherever we follow Him. Maybe He's chosen to use broken vessels as His disciples so that we leave drops of His faithfulness and evidence of His grace wherever we walk. Maybe it's to remind us that we are not enough, but He fills in where we are not. Or maybe it's to remind us that if we were enough on our own, we wouldn't need Him. 

I think I need to be broken in order to glorify God. In order to let God be glorified. I think I need holes in order to allow His rays of sunshine to pierce through the cracks of my heart. The light of the Sun breaks into my heart and I can feel it in my spine. Shivers flow quick down my back and I wake up from deep sleep. I am made whole by this scandal of grace, this manifestation of God's will done through Jesus. 

Thank you Jesus for the Sun. Even in the valley of the shadow of death, death is simply that, a shadow. Where there is a shadow, there is also the Sun. Where there is death, there is also life. Thank you for using people, your beautiful and intricate creation, to remind me that the warmth of the Sun is always near. Thank you for creating eyes that restore my faith in you and allow people to see into the depths of who you've made me to be. Thank you for being more faithful than the warmth of that morning Sun.