I lie here in the quiet, the fragrance of the outcasts still lingering on my skin. Dust and city and cigarettes mingled with warm vanilla and freesia, shared by bold embraces under bridges and on street corners. Today I walked with them, sang with them, collected their words like seashells and their smiles like bright coins. And tonight I hear her voice – the one who danced with abandon, the one with the braids and the withered skin and the clothing draped on frailty – I see her smile and hear her voice tonight.
“Watch out, because God is speaking. This is where it’s good, honey. This is where it’s powerful.”
Yes, mama. This is where it’s good.
Good isn’t found in the “have it all together” or “when things get right” or the “when they change.” Hell, good’s not even a destination – any more than brokenness is. Both are just small dots on a map to glory, passing places like Gathering Up and Letting Go and Humbly Yielding and Fearfully and Wonderfully. Have and Have Not are nowhere to be found on the journey.
Yes, mama. You are where it’s good. You are where it’s powerful. You have found liberty in the living for living’s sake. In the stripped away, nothing-but-God-and-grace life I hunger for daily. And so, you dance. And you invite me to join you as we put pins on the map of what matters. You remind me of where my true identity finds itself. Three places on that map. Redemption. Ransom. Rescue. They are woven into everything I open my eyes to see.
Oh mama, will you pray my eyes stay open?
And we will let freedom find us here. When God prompts our hearts, we’ll let our feet move and our hands reach high. Always, always, always. He can speak in a sunrise and He promises the rocks will cry out if we remain silent because even they understand His magnificence. But He adores you and me so much that He chooses to let His voice sound like ours. He chooses to let his hands feel like ours. He chooses to respond through our hugging and our holding and our stumbling awkward life. He chooses to join us on the journey. He chooses to smell like the perfume of the outcasts. He spoke stars – SPOKE STARS – and yet, there He is, choosing to reveal Himself through outcasts like us. He says “This is where it’s good, honey. This is where it’s powerful.”
Today mama, His voice sounds like yours.
So, where on the map are you? And what does redemption, rescue and ransom look like for you?