Living Liquid

I’m living normal, going to gym, doing my own shopping in my sweaty running kit and bright pink takkies. I’m reading the specials and hunting for birthday gifts for yet another child growing up faster than my camera can catch the light bouncing off of him.

Over the sound system comes the song, Butterfly Kisses, and my eyes fill up at the little white flowers caught up in the hair of another daughter growing up so fast. But I’m living normal, swallowing my tears and pushing my chin up high. And then I’m not, I’m ducking behind my trolley, pretending to look at the dishcloths on the bottom shelf while I sob as silently as I can into my gym towel.

I’m living liquid and I’m wondering if it will always be this way? Will my skin grow back, or will it never harden again?

And I don’t mean from the pain, because I’m not feeling pain, but I’m feeling painfully alive - excruciatingly, breathtakingly, beautifully alive - and I want to stay this way. Not behind my trolley, but also not hidden behind my skin.

I used to think I was able to decide on the permeability of my walls at any given moment, back in the day before they came crashing down. But now I wonder if I could have pulled them down at all, they had become a part of me, defining who I became whilst having little resemblance to who I truly am.

And I love the naked me - the raw, open, imperfect and yet perfectly lovely me. I love the freedom I feel as I feel the wind of the Spirit rushing over my naked soul, and I pray that he teaches me to live liquid forever.

Because I love the way the liquid-me feels spirit-connected to the stories hiding in each of you: the stories of deep need, and high hope. As a dear friend points out to me today, my tears have transitioned from tears of pain and sadness to tears of passion and purpose. And together, we have what it takes, not only to #keephopealive, but also to keep ourselves alive as we tear down the barriers to connection that have separated our souls from each other and God for so long.