Fire

There is an awakening in my heart akin to that of a rekindled flame.  It roars with passion at some times, and at others, I protect it from the wind with cupped hands-- but it burns, nonetheless.

I felt the spark of it when I stepped into Jubilee Church.  It was like gathering the fuel and recognizing it as good flammable material.  And there were sparks that landed dangerously close, but none that embarked on a glowing trail to the center of my heart.

Here, I must take the time to recognize God's influence on my circumstances and thank Him for what He did for me.  It's one thing to know it and such a difference matter to apply it.  I had planned a trip with Allison which had to be cancelled, and here, I must admit that I am prone to do the things that would make Allison happy. Well, although I associate her presence in my life with God's blessings, I hesitantly decided to attend my church's men's retreat.  I am a man of words, and so, what would I be if I wasn't a man of my word?  If I recognized that the church had all the right materials to set things ablaze, then how could I live with myself if I ignored the obvious act of Fate when God shattered my plans?  And so, at the risk of hurting Allison, whom God Himself had put in my life anyway, I committed to going to this retreat.

And lo and behold, what happened?  Things happened exactly as they should if only I let them-- or rather, let God.  This is what I had been missing.  All those allusions to melancholy and ennui-- lack of inspiration and color in my life-- they were all instantly cured, and not only cured, but replaced by new passions I had never even known to want.  It's like I wanted fire in all its orange splendor, and, instead, I got a beautiful blue flame, even hotter than what I had originally intended to want.

But it wasn't all an effortless receiving of the Spirit, there were moments even after the moment.  It didn't end with just the decision to commit; there was the moment that I decided to raise my hands for praise, the moment I decided to speak (in fact, this moment occurred again and again), the moment I decided to be honest with myself about my past-- there were moments after moments.  And every moment added fuel to the fire, and it grew bigger and brighter.

And then-- I jumped into the flames themselves for, you see, there were moments after the retreat.  I had to enter the fire and be refined by the heat as it burned away the earthly things that had taken hold of me with fierce determination.  But I see them as they close into a crinkled black mass of what I recognize to be repentance, and I could see the Purity that every soul is meant to be underneath the ugliness as it fell away.

And if this soul is me, if I am it, then I have to take this moment to state that I could not recognize it.  There was a lingering fragrance resembling nostalgia, like something deep in my past that transcends even my memories, but other than that, I must admit that I was beholding something novel that I can only now proclaim is something truer to myself that I had ever uttered myself to be.

I am, once again, reborn.