Sometimes the wind whispers
different things to me. Often it brings scents, memories of places I’ve
forgotten or never been, places that the wind tells me call my name. I know the
wind mostly as an instigator, a force effective at stirring up the sediment in
my soul. Today, though, the wind softly fingered my tired, sick body and traced
peace along my skin. It wiped away the dangling threads of doubt and fear, blew
away dusty tiredness, and carried the humid promise of newness.
Like
the weather for much of this strange winter[1],
this season is nothing like what I anticipated, what I spent years preparing
for. There is a rightness to it and no regrets, no doubting of the turns I’ve
made on the road to this point, but there are things buried at the bottom of my
pack that carry more weight the further I walk. If this were a Märchen path,
these would be the oddly assorted items given by an equally odd assortment of
personages[2],
and the purpose of each would become clear as it was needed. How can this bit
of skill and that knick-knack of passion ever combine? How does such a
strangely cut piece of knowledge find a purpose? And I find myself in the same
position as that heroine-princess trusting that gifts given from a true heart and
held by a heart pursuing truth are not in vain. Each will, in its turn, yield
necessary if wholly unexpected aid.
Märchen,
or what is more commonly known as Fairytale[3],
and I have a long and happy relationship. Many of my favorite stories are
lesser-known tales[4] which perhaps is why the
illustration comes so readily to hand. Unless you’ve gone past the familiar
childhood representations, it’s easy to discount a love of fairy tales as
childish romanticism. The thing is, it is yet another means I’ve found of
deepening my faith. Like that princess away from her true home[5], I
operate in faith, walk in trust, and live in hope. There have been some pretty gnarly
forests I’ve walked through, friends wearing masks, many surprising guides and
(seemingly) illogical solutions, yet I’ve seen my King’s heart of love for His
people and that is what shapes my daily response. He is just, He is faithful,
He is loving. He does not lie or play games. So while I continue to forge
ahead, walking under a thousand skies of wind and unsure of what future turns
to make, I remember His heart and have hope; I feel His wind and have peace.
He who forms the mountains, who
creates the wind,
And who reveals his thoughts to
mankind,
Who turns dawn to darkness, and
treads on the heights of the earth—
The LORD God Almighty is his
name. Amos 4:13
Jokes
of death and taxes aside, this is the only surety that life offers: there is a
King, and the boundary between His kingdom and the world is starkly black and
white. His people are far from perfect and experience the full measure of
worldly ills; we are far from home. How sweet that homecoming will be, but oh,
what adventures in getting there!
Faye
[1]
When can you ever open your windows on a 65° day in JANUARY in Indiana??
[3] George
MacDonald says it well in his essay The
Fantastic Imagination, “That we have in English no word corresponding to
the German Mährchen,
drives us to use the word Fairytale,
regardless of the fact that the tale may have nothing to do with any sort of
fairy.”
[5]
Hebrews 13:14- For this world is not our permanent home; we are looking forward
to a home yet to come.
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