Were you to open my journal you would see it all throughout. You could not fail to notice all of the places where the stiff necked soldiered lines of proper words standing at attention turn to jagged, fluid flops of gibberish. What formerly held the promise of prose slumps off into scribble. The thoughts I have been rushing to ink out onto paper are cut short. The paragraphs I meant to pile up into pleasing turns of phrase have turned another direction entirely.
Why?
Because a tiny hand keeps grabbing hold of my pen.
I could take it back. I could pry that pen straight out of those pudgy hands by force of my own superior prowess.
But I don’t.
Instead, I teach her how to pass it back to me.
I am in control. I can give commands but I with all my power, I wait with open hands.
She tries to create for herself. Even now. Even early. She tries to create while she cannot possibly comprehend what she is crafting. She scribbles for a little while, observes her craft and then, weary of her writing work she hands me back the pen. And that, that very instant is the moment when I with all my knowledge can begin to write again.
I write words beyond her imagining. Words she cannot possibly begin to understand.
The story begins to make sense once more, when the pen is in my hand.
It is this mystery miraculous that He who crafted space waits for us to make room for Him.
He sits enthroned on high, yet we can knock Him off of the throne of our hearts any time we feel like it.
He created time, and sometimes we manage to spare a bit for Him.
He can chase the east wind at the speed of light but He waits with wild tenacity for us to be willing to walk with Him.
It is a mystery miraculous, this mystery miracle love.
As you go on in my journal you will smile much now and then when you see all of the places that she grabbed the pen again.
But greater still the times she placed it back into my hands, so I could write the harder words, so I could etch out plans.
She will grow. And she will know that all the time it seemed
That I took from her
That I cheated her
And did it with a smile
On every page
At every age
I was writing all the while
The rhyming and the rhythm of things she’s never dreamed.
photo credit: Fuji X100S Macro via photopin (license)
James Poitras 