Road trip

I like metaphors and similes. Perhaps you've noticed that if you've read much of my stuff. Sometimes it's the best I can do to describe something I have difficulty putting into logical words. Like tonight.

Tonight, for instance, I'm driving home from seeing my counselor, and I get this sense - I don't know a better word for it - that God has pulled up beside me in a car as I'm walking along the highway. I don't know where I'm going exactly, but He pulls up beside me, stops the car and gets out to follow me. He invites me to get inside His car. I ask where He's going. He just says, "Come with Me."

So I get in, and we start driving. We, as in He. I've done my fair share of driving over the years, and let's face it, I'm not as great at it as He. That's an understatement. It's dark outside and we're cruising along, mile after mile of pavement stretching before us. I notice we're heading back to places I recognize from my past. Places I've lived. Places I've lost. Places that hold both joy and pain, life and death, in my memory. "Where are we going?" I dare to ask again, quietly, in little more than a whisper. I want to know, but I'm also a little afraid to know, because the closer we get to these places, the more I feel.

He takes me to different sites along the highway. Sites that cars easily drive past without noticing the little white cross and the bunch of flowers laying across the dirt. At each place, He holds my hand and leads me to the burial site, and then He leans down and starts digging away with His hands, scratching at the dirt. He digs until He uncovers something familiar, but unrecognizable. He cradles it like a treasure, places it in a chest, and leads me back to the car. We do this at multiple sites, until multiple pieces have been recovered. And then at last I peer in the chest, at the pieces that now have a shape. I gasp.

My heart.

He leans down and kisses those pieces. Slowly the dullness fades and the color returns, sweeping through all those broken pieces as His breath covers them. They begin to come alive, surging together, pumping in unison.

"I'm putting your heart back together." He says it simply, with finality. And I believe Him, finally.

And all the while, we're listening to this song by David Crowder, providing the soundtrack for this little journey. And I'm gripping His hands.

He is the love

This is the place I've known

Here in the arms of one who loves

Deeper than anyone

His are the hands I've grown to trust

And this is the place I've known

Here in the arms of one who loves

Farther than I could run

His are the hands I've grown to trust

And I believe...

His are the hands that spread the sky

And His is the love that gives me life

And His are the broken, the needy ones

And He is the love