Yellow

Aftermath of a storm.

Once upon a time I used to think I didn't care much for the color yellow. Actually, I didn't just think I didn't, I really didn't. To me it was just the color of pee, blondes (no offense), mustard (which I abhor), and horrid Easter dresses. It would hardly show up in crayon, and would clash horribly with my skin. In my mind it just kind of sat there in the rainbow between orange and green. I've always preferred purples myself. But it's not like this was something I spent much time pondering. I never had time for that. I mean afterall, we are just talking about color, c'mon!

But recently I've developed a renewed appreciation for amazing little miracles God put into place in this universe for us to marvel in, which, sadly, we don't most of the time and just take for granted because we see them literally every day. Things like the cricket's song or the slowly morphing clouds or our dexterous hands. Or even more basic things, things like color. He could have made everything in black and white, or something like that, you know. Now, don't get me wrong, I love the pureness of white and that black is made up of every color (and that it's slimming hehe). I love a good old -fashioned B&W movie and adore B&W photography. But my mind is now replaying the part of the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy steps out of the house into Oz and suddenly her dreary colorless existence is lit up in sparkling vivid technicolor. Oh, how breathtaking is that scene! And it's not just the surface aesthetic aspect of it (because from that point on cinema would be ever improving upon the quality of its color), it's the contrast, it's how it hits you. I can't quite articulate this, but it's kind of the little spark I get in my gut when I finally get my churning mind off of my heartache and addictions and actually think about how amazing His work is.

Even more recently I've realized that somewhere along the line I've come to adore yellow without really thinking about it. Until now. Now yellow to me is sunshine, fireflies, lightning (see last post), daisies, yummy butter, fresh pineapple, stars, and the closest representation of light other than white.

Lately I've had quite a fascination with all things light, whether literal, metaphorical, or spiritual and I don't think that's just my weirdness. God has been using the most mundane commonplace things like color and light (which now that I list those two together in a sentence all sorts of correlations between color and light other than what I'm already writing about pop into my head, but they're going to have to stay there because I digress) to teach me and bring things to my attention. It's almost as if He's staying really simple and basic with me because He knows my poor mind and heart are a bit fried from the last 5 years or so (actually, I could argue I've got some small, but always in a vicious cycle of being ripped open and bleeding and then healing again scars tracing back to age 7 when isolation made my shell become my refuge for a long time), especially the last 3, and especially ESPECIALLY the last 6 months. That last sentence probably didn't make any sense, but it did to me, so moving on. But even simple light and color are now blowing my mind! But again, I don't think it's just because my mind is too easily blown, it's that every "little" thing He's done really is and should be mind blowing. And I put "little" in quotation marks because is anything He's done actually "little"?

A few words on light. Where do I start? It's how we see, right? Literally, right? That alone is staggering. But to call His Truth light, His Word a lamp unto our feet, that is more than just a clever metaphor to me. That is reality just as much as light from the sun enabling the cones and rods in our eyes to see the colors around us. What's really staggering is that I type that and in the next instant realize how much I really know in my head that has yet to penetrate the core of my heart. I have yet to be at the point of constant unquenchable thirst for being in His Word. It's very on and off for me right now still, and that grieves me. This may be precisely why He's using what I see around me to get my attention.

Another thing I appreciate much more now than in the past is the sun. I don't know when it started, but all the time I was at school at NCC last year I craved the sunlight, to run out and bask in it. Not to tan, but bask. And I haven't always been like that. I've mostly been an indoor kitty a majority of my life. Still kind of revert to indoor life by habit. But anymore I'd honestly rather be out in the sun's rays feeling the anxiety melt away in it's enveloping warmth. Have you thought about the common knowledge fact that we revolve around the sun? That it is the center? That if it were to not be at the center of our orbit life as we know it couldn't exist? That its gravitational pull is what keeps us from just floating off into the black abyss? That even when it goes "down" for the night, it really hasn't gone anywhere, it's us that have moved and turned away? That it's always there keeping us alive and giving evidence of it's presence by reflecting on us by the moon? It may just be me, but I can't help thinking that the sun isn't just a practical thing we need, but is also a powerful visual aide showing us who Christ is and what He should be to us. I didn't know until recently when my friend Jason pointed it out to me in a discussion about all this that there is Scripture that makes a direct correlation between the sun and the Son.

2 But to you who fear My name
The Sun of Righteousness shall arise
With healing in His wings;
And you shall go out
And grow fat like stall-fed calves.
3 You shall trample the wicked,
For they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet
On the day that I do this,”
Says the LORD of hosts.
~Malachi 4: 2-3

Amazing.

Another thing I've been learning about in relation to light is it's antitheses, darkness. Spiritual warfare is real, folks. Don't believe me? Look around. But I'm not going to dive into that much here other than to say I started to really see it on a whole new level last year and I felt like I had been squinching my eyes shut tight for years and had finally just barely opened them a crack. But that crack let a flood of light in, as well as let me see a bit of the lurking shadows, all of which I hadn't seen to that extent before. Mind you, I didn't have em' open all the way, still don't by a long shot, and I didn't quite know what I was looking at most of the time, and definitely didn't know how to articulate it to anyone. But it was very real. It's not that I never knew satan existed, but now I really knew. I just really started seeing more of the depths to which his darkness quietly, subtly permeates, or tries to I should say, because I also saw the darkness have to flee from the light. Funny how one point of light draws the eye from a whole expanse of darkness. An old Point of Grace song (haha yeah, yeah) pops to mind:

When you're walking in the dead of night
When your soul is churning
When your hope seems out of sight
Keep the candle burning
All it takes is one steady heart
In a world that's turning
Shine a light and pierce the dark
Keep the candle burning
One ray of light always breaks through...

Anyway, meandering my way back to yellow, I think there's another thing after light I can add to my list of what yellow is to me now: Joy. One of my favorite poet/singer/songwriter/spoken word artists Bradley Hathaway once wrote that joy is purple pastel pretty, but to me if it had to be a color, it'd be yellow. And not because happy faces are yellow. Joy isn't happiness. For me, even this has to do with light. Because the best I can think to explain it, joy is that little spark, that little candle flame that burns and pierces the dark. Happiness is like the day when there isn't much darkness, but it doesn't last just like the daytime doesn't last. But joy is that point of light that keeps even the thickest darkness from being complete around us even in the dead of night. Maybe I'm thinking of hope, but then again maybe they're closely related. That flame in the dark is peace instead of fear, joy instead of grief, hope instead of defeat. I'll admit, even now I have that flame shining in certain areas of my life, but not nearly all, as if it's a bit off center or something. Regarding my divorce and my ex-husband for instance, I have more peace and joy and hope and forgiveness and, and, and... than I ever imagined possible even just 6 months ago. Not to say that they can't develop even more, because growth never stops, but I rejoice and praise Him that at least the bulk of the shackle of bitterness and anxiety about all that has been broken off of me. I also have more of these things than I imagined I would regarding my schooling situation and other things as well.

But I can't say the same yet regarding my most recent "significant other," for lack of a better term. More often than not I'm still utterly haunted by it, more than I ever remember being about anyone, even my ex-husband, and that's saying a lot. I've cut off numerous people in my life before out of fear, anger, and hurt, all selfishness, but he is the first one I've cut off that I'm scared to let go of, angry that I have to let go of, in a world of hurt that I have to let go of him, and I'm still holding on to him in my heart and mind out of selfishness. The only thing they all have in common is that I was the one to cut ties, but I went from the one extreme of pushing people away when God didn't necessarily say to, to the opposite extreme of holding someone too close, so close to the point of taking my focus above even God, which God said not to. I don't know if this is from God or satan, probably satan, but I keep telling myself if only I'd kept myself in check and kept emotional boundaries and my priorities intact it wouldn't have gotten to the point where God had to remove me from him. I could have kept a person I care about in my life and not had to hurt him so deeply, he who's already been hurt so much in life. I wouldn't have had to see him react with every emotion, from him lashing out just like a wounded animal and thinking and saying things he shouldn't have about my spiritual leaders, to the pleading in his eyes and mouth for me to hear his concern for me, to his quiet weeping broken only by whispered pleas my ears couldn't understand but my heart could. But I've been adamantly told that all this churning in my head is satan trying to beat me up and pound me down. And hold me back. I have a hard time clearly seeing that all too often. But I DO know I can't play the 'what if.." game. I have to get it through my head that kinda like how God says "vengeance is mine," He also says "healing is mine." Whether I did the right thing or not, nothing I alone can do at this point will be what either of us needs to heal from anything in each of our pasts. When will this truth penetrate me and loosen my grasp, Lord? It's almost more than I can bear sometimes just to make it through a day without caving in to satan's constant torturous tactics trying to get me to dwell on him, grasp at anything I can use to hold on to him. And he doesn't even know it. He thinks I've forgotten him.

There's a lyric in a song by La Dispute something like, "I'm a greenhouse filled with ghosts." At least the way I choose to interpret that, that's about how I feel. There's good stuff growing and taking root in me and light is getting in, but I'm still having trouble letting the ghosts out. That little candle flame is flickering off center. I think God 's telling me for the millionth time, it goes back to communing with Him. Reading and listening to what He has to say more and really talking to Him more. I'm doing more of this than I used to, but still very sporadically, and so the light piercing my dark is still very sporadic. That's the bottom line.

And so, on that bittersweet note, I will wind this rather sprawling (but still tied together in my mind) thing up where I started. Yellow, as pictured above by my phone camera, is one final thing to me. The aftermath, the calm after an amazing storm.

I haven't been writing much poetry lately, but this whole train of thought started with me running across an old poem I wrote. It still fits.

Once, twice I look into my own eyes
All I see are these silent yellow skies
Swirling, twirling far off with a foreboding wonder
I feel drawn as my carefully crafted world goes under
What will become of me as I dance in the haze?
My mind has lost me in this eternal maze
I play with a smile in the pelting rain
It mingles nicely with the tears of pain
Ethereal sun, break through my lovely storm now
Light these portholes into my being somehow
Warm me up and set me on my feet
That I may cast clear eyes on others in need

The Joy of the Lord is My Strength

Light[n]ing Storm

To start this thing off, I’ll just post something I jotted down a while back. Could stand to be improved/expanded upon, but it will do for now.

We are used to seeing storms in a negative light, metaphors for bad times, trials and tribulations, etc. That’s ok. But I think there’s far more to be seen in them.

Raging storms can seem formidable, and they are in a way, but for one, they show God’s power. And awesomeness. Storm clouds block the light of the celestial bodies, and darkness becomes thick, but it is shattered in an instant- maybe for only an instant- with a single razor thin yet uncontainable lightning bolt that illuminates the expanse around it bright as day. It’s only for a moment though, gone in a flash (pun intended…how do you think we got that phrase?). And just when the darkness regroups and starts to block out not only the light of the stars and moon again but also the memory of what that flash from heaven looked like, another comes…and another…and another… Reminding us what there is to see. There’s never just one, just like there’s never just one star in the constellations . And just think, only lightning has sound effects to add to the effect too.

Oh, how dark is a city night where there is no sun, the stars blocked by the pollution of smoky artificial light, and even the moon obscured from plain view by the skyscrapers. May the lightning strike and make our so-called “power” go out so we can stop and watch real unbridled power divide the night sky into jagged pieces until the Sun appears with it’s mercy fresh every morning and melts them away.

Lightning, God’s fingernails scratching through the chaos painted skies, drawing our eyes, if but for a moment, to light bursting through the cracks.

“When darkness overtakes the godly, light will come bursting in.” Psalm 112:4a

“There is beauty in a storm.”-La Dispute