Speaking to my own heart…
Naturally, I am a glass-half-full person who is happy-go-lucky and finds good in everything and everyone.
However, like so many humans who have been experiencing life for any amount of time (the following movie reference will be a decent indicator of my age), I have taken some hits that have left me disenchanted, disappointed, bracing for the other shoe to drop and slowly sinking into despair.
Hopeless and jaded isn’t who I want to be. It’s something Jesus warned about when he said, “Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold…” (Matthew 24:12)
Do you remember that scene from “The Neverending Story” where Atreyu (the boy) and Artax (the horse) are in The Swamp of Sadness?
During these dark times, I can see myself sinking into hopelessness and know I am in as much danger of drowning as Artax. Like Atreyu, who pleads with Artax to not give up, I wish I knew the right words or formula that could stop me from sinking.
But what I have discovered is, just like in the story, the help I need isn’t within myself.
In the movie, the sky parts and Atreyu’s salvation swoops in from above in the form of Falkor (who is called a “dragon” but looks more like a flying wiener dog).
The rescue for Atreyu and for me isn’t from within. It is from without.
The Psalms paints a beautiful image of my promised rescue “He reached down from on high and took hold of me; He drew me out of deep waters. He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from foes too mighty for me. They confronted me in my day of calamity, but the LORD was my support. He brought me out into the open; He rescued me because He delighted in me.” (Psalm 18:16-19)
I have put this truth to the test more times than I wish was necessary. Enough times to prove the faithfulness of the promised rescue.
Help always comes and each time, I sink a little less deeply into the sucking despair as I remember the previous rescues and recall that struggling does nothing for me (but cause me to sink deeper and faster) and I need to simply be still and wait.
In those waiting times, I look for beauty; Anything outside myself that is an echo of grace; the seagrass swaying gently in the sea breeze; the formation of pelicans riding the wind over roofs of houses along the seashore; a kaleidoscope of coquina shell colors after a wave recedes, followed by their magical dance back into the safety of the sand.
These are my versions of doing what Jesus instructed in Matthew 6…
“Look at the birds.”
“Consider the lilies.”
I have recently found myself in the Swamp of Sadness.. yet again. My heart has been crushed by another cruel blow.
So, I’m speaking to my own heart with these words to remind myself to stop railing against despair and hopelessness and settle into this season of waiting. Knowing that help is on the way.
The following poem means a lot to me since it’s a much lovelier way to say the words I have already said and because it is my mom’s favorite.
She comes into the presence of still waters nearly everyday when she takes her bear of a dog, Barnabas, for his walk. She craves the beauty of nature so much that she’ll bundle up in the coldest temperatures to go seek out the wood drake (or, in her case, beavers and eagles)…
I hope you enjoy these words as much as she and I do…
“The Peace of Wild Things”
“When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”
-Wendell Berry
