Breath in a closet.

Hi all.

dark? yes. scary? not quite like Halloween. confusing? most certainly. frustrating? more than a jigsaw puzzle that's for sure (and if you know me well enough, you'll know I'm horrible at jigsaw puzzles; any puzzle or brain teaser for that matter.). Some call it a valley. Some call it the desert. But in the past month, I've grown to claim it as my "closet."

Personally, I think I'd rather be in a valley or a desert. Either of them seems more appealing to me at this point. But I have to honest; it doesn't feel like a valley...In a valley you look up and wonder how to get up and out of it. And it doesn't feel like a desert...In a desert you long, you long for your thirst to be quenched. You long for luscious forestry and brooks overflowing with cool refreshing water.

I don't seem to be looking up (wish I was) and I don't seem to be longing for more (I'm sure I need to be, but such doesn't seem to be the case right now)...

It feels much more like a closet. Yes, a closet. This past year I feel like I've been tossed into a closet. It's a dark closet. Nothing to sit on. It's hot in here. It's humid. The air is pretty thick actually. A closet. Musty smelling. You know the kind. I seem to have some sort of object in my hand. Not sure at all what it is.

Dark. Lonely. Empty. Thick. Hard to breathe. Unable to sit and rest. And an object.

The problem is...I don't want to be in the closet. I don't want to wait in the dark anymore. I don't want to wrestle with the object anymore. And I most certainly don't want to try and rest in this uncomfortable place. I think there's a party going on outside my closet and I want to be a part of it. I want to be out of my closet.

I've looked for a light switch, and I can't find it. I've tried to figure out if this object in my hand is actually something worthwhile, something more than an occupier of space in my already limited space-of-a-closet.

I bet you're all thinking that I'll tell you how I got out of the closet. I bet you think I'll tell you where the light switch is. I bet you think I'm going to tell you that I've figured it all out. Or at least I'll tell you that I figured out that the object is a blow-up beach ball, ha ha.

But I can't. I don't know why I'm in the closet. Why would anyone hang out in a dark and lonely closet? Great question, you ask. Maybe I need to learn how to rest. Maybe I need to learn that the party is not about me and that it will go on, with or without me. Maybe I need time to fondle whatever it is in my hand - my faith? something I've placed before God? Maybe God had to place me in a closet to get my attention. Or maybe, maybe I just need to get away from the world, as I knew it, for a while.

A coworker of mine down in North Carolina invited me to go to the Body Worlds Exposition. Funny thing is, she kept asking me how I felt about going to it. She, being a bit iffy on the whole thing, was amazed at my overwhelming excitement for the event. It wasn't until we were standing right in front of the exposition that I read: the anatomical exposition of real human bodies.

Real? These bodies are real? Yuck! Ugh, I think I'm gonna be sick - oops, guess I hadn't caught that part! :)

As we uh, what's the proper word to use here, as we browsed through the bodies? (please note my cringed face) We got to a case where a brain just sat there. I had this absolute pure moment of awe. It was just a pile of mush. Could have been pile of play dough for all that it appeared to be just lying there on the case. And it hit me. The Spirit of Life is undeniable. Without it a brain is a pile of mush. With it, this pile of mush, thinks, feels, reasons, spawns so much, so so much. It makes life.

So I'm in a closet. And I don't know much at the moment other than that. I know a lot of stuff in my head. But right now, all my heart knows is that I'm in a closet. It's dark. It's confusing. It's most definitely frustrating. At some point...maybe the light switch will turn on (there has to be one somewhere in here, I'm sure of it.)...and maybe I'll start to make out this object in my hand a bit more. But until then, I'll just keep on breathing. For as long as I shall live (which is forever) I know that the Spirit of the Lord is within me. And it's beautiful. It sustains me; even in a musty, dark, ole closet.

Cheering you on as you breathe in and breathe out.

May the Spirit of the Lord, the giver of Life, fill your all in all, wherever you find yourself today.

Kaylee