First Thursday of Advent
Scripture Reading for Today:
and you
by Mara Teare
I stopped being a child in 2018. I stopped seeing the sun in 2019. I stopped knowing the difference between truth and faith in 2020. I stopped living in 2021. Time had turned on its head and flipped me off. This was the battlefront, and I was ill-equipped.
I can hardly remember what came before. I remember what’s happened since. He remembers it all. Probably.
I’ve never told anyone this before.
…
When I was a child, it all seemed much easier said, even easier done. Anything is possible when you believe you are Special.
One out of ten,
out of twenty,
out of six thousand and three.
Brighter than the sun in the middle of summer,
freer than a cloud in a prairie sky.
And who would deny a child their dreams?
“He is because He is.”
What else is there to say?
Everyone played along so well, raising me higher on my pillar of glass.
I believed I could reach perfection.
I believed I could walk on water.
I believed.
Nobody warns their child that reality is a cliff cloaked in fog. Nobody tells their child that tears can lie. Nobody sees their child is no longer a child until it is too late.
It was too late.
The sun was already setting. It was difficult to see the ground beneath me. I guess I had to trust my feet. By now I’d learned not to trust anything else. That was child’s play.
Somehow, His voice still carried on the wind, like something from a dream already fading. It sounded like home.
Evening approached.
A season of sepia, a time for dying.
Though the sky was smaller, I still put one foot in front of the other.
What else is there to do?
He waited in the dusk, setting the clock each night, to remind me that I must rise, even if the sun did not.
I did not know that this was the beginning of utter silence.
Nobody asks if you’re ok once you’re old enough to vote. There are far more important things to worry about. Nobody tells you that people stay cruel past the age of 16.
I’d suddenly grown old.
The night infected me like a parasite. I’d caught a cold that was eating my mind.
Learning to walk on water was the least of my concerns. I’d get to that later.
He called my bluff, and I hated Him for it.
I didn’t even know that I was lying to myself.
Up was down and left was right and wrong was everywhere around me.
And still it grew colder.
Everything had turned to ice.
The stillness of shadows unknown had sunk into my bones.
The only sign of life was the puff of air that slipped past my winter lips.
And as the lake froze over, I realized that anyone could walk on water, all it took was a change of season.
He clung on by a finger, hoping I wouldn’t let go.
No promises.
The heat was dying,
The grip was loosening.
My feet had taken me somewhere far from myself.
What else is there for me?
Silence is golden, so maybe if I disappeared forever, I’d be made of light.
At least I’d be alone.
And I was alone.
But what does it matter? We are all children of God. The seed of the Most High, and I, the child who was never meant to be. The drain on the bank account, the weight in your back pocket, the fifth season. Mine is a delightful land, that rejoices in falsity and cowers in truth.
Why have you let your children destroy someone you say you love?
And will I make it past this point? Will I see these days returned and say I saw you there all along? For here I am. The candles are lit, the words are spent, the wait is over. And still I ask: what else is there?
What else?
what else what else what else what else what else what else what else what else what else what else what else what else what else what else what else what else what else what else
…
When I was a child, I did not know where the world ended and the sky began. My only wish was to be essential amidst it all.
Someone once told me I was the sun. Maybe they were onto something.
I don’t go to church anymore. I don’t think that has anything to do with my faith. I think it has everything to do with my trust issues. I think He gets that.
I am not who I was. I didn’t need to die to be made new. Maybe you did. Maybe that’s the whole point.
Forgive me. I have sinned. But you already knew that. How embarrassing.
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