I Wanna Sunburn

I wanna sunburn just to know that I'm alive. Just to know that I'm alive. 

Interesting how the artist puts it, isn't it?  To know he is alive, he wants to feel pain.  I don't know that that would be my request.  I have a sunburn right now and it doesn't feel nice.  It isn't something that I would hope for.  But somehow, in a way, it does make me feel alive.  It makes me realize that I am really living.  That I am alive.  That I am able to sit in the sun and soak it all in. 
I wouldn't have been able to do that before. 
I would've overheated and over exhausted myself.  Just from sitting in the sun. 
But now I can.   I can sit in the sun and feel its warm rays wrap around my body.  I remember thinking that the sun's warm rays were a form of God's arms wrapping around me in the best hug ever. 
Sitting in the sun is a happy place for me.  Actually more than that.  It is joyously divine.  And now it is all the more joyously divine.  
And that's because I have felt the pain.  Not the pain of its burn, but the lack there of.  The pain of not being able to simply sit in the sun.  Put on a bathing suit and swim.  Run through the sprinklers or crashing waves.  The pain of being stuck.  Stuck and not knowing when or how I will ever get unstuck.  
But without that feeling of hopelessness.  Of depression.  Of despair.  I wouldn't truly know what hope and joy really felt like.  
The darker the black, the whiter the white appears.  The deeper the shadow, the brighter the light beaming down. 
And I can say the light is pretty bright.  Although life is so different and I am still struggling to overcome some of the repercussions of 8 months of being stuck, I can say I know joy to a whole new level.  I feel His embrace all the more.  I see real beauty all around. 
And without the pain, I wouldn't know these things.  Life may not be much different.  My eyes may not be opened.  My ears may not be tuned.  And my heart may not be on beat. 
Without having to cling to Him with everything,  because He is all I had, I wouldn't have heard His heart beat as clear.   Or seen His hands wrapped around me - holding me.  I wouldn't have depended on Him instead of myself. 
Without the pain, I wouldn't be able to feel what I do now. 
So I welcome this sunburnt skin because it shows that I am living.  That I am living and slowly learning more what living to the full really is.  Breathing in His name.  Opening my hands.  And placing my head on His chest in order to memorize how His heart beats.  
How it beats with love.  With love for His broken and hurting children.  And how that love pieces back the broken shards into something way more beautiful.  
And I pray that I would see how He sees, that my heart would beat for what His beats for, that I would be attuned to Him with ears always listening, and that I would have feet ever ready to run and proclaim His faithfulness, love, and great mercy. 
That I would live with each breath for Him - not for me. 
That I would continue to burn.  To feel the pains of living and living to the full.  For as Thriving Ivory's song continues, every day's the first of your life. 
And I choose to live with that new passion.  That new adventure.  That new joy of each new and beautiful thing. 

The Ugly Beautiful

The ugly made beautiful.
The ugly beautiful.

Finding the beautiful in the pain, sadness, confusion.  Finding the beautiful in the valleys.
It's sometimes really difficult.  Everything can look so dark. So full of hurt. So full of questioning without answers.
But I have begun to learn that if you look hard enough, the ugly can become beautiful.
The ugly can be beautiful.  Sometimes you have to really look.
But the beautiful is there. 

The fire will come and it will burn.  It will hurt and leave ugly black behind it.
It will be devastating.  It is devastating.
It is hard to understand why fire must come. Change the course of life.
But it still comes.  Life is changed.
Life is changed but not destroyed.

And you know, sometimes the fire is needed.  For the pain and black to come.
Because somehow in the black, the light shines brighter.
The blessings, the gifts, the beautiful shines true because of the ugly.

A fire blazed out of control not too far from here about a month ago.
It burned, destroyed, wrecked everything in its path.
It caused pain, fear, death.
But because of it, the life shines brighter.
The life saved, rescued.  The life that survived.
And the life that now blooms.  And blooms because of the fire.

The valley is barren and dark. But because of the fire, the yucca plants bloom.  
They bloom in glory.  They are beautiful and brilliant.

They say that the yucca plant flowers even more after the fire.
After the burning pain, it blooms even more.
And the more it blooms, the more impact it has.
More seeds are spread and more plants will one day grow bright and beautiful.


And you know what is else?
The yucca is also known as Our Lord's Candle.
The light that shines bright into the darkness.
The light that shines truth, love, and beauty into this world.

Somehow, beauty shines through the ashes.  A brilliant reminder of hope.
That out of the pain, out of what seems like death, life and life to the full can come.

And that is what I am learning.  Learning to find the beauty in the ugly.
The beauty despite the ugly. The ugly beautiful.

And because of that, I hope. I can hope.
I can keep going.  For He promises to make beautiful things out of us.
Out of dark. Out of pain. Out of the ugly.
Beauty comes.

It comes brighter than before. Even though it truly has been there all along.
The ugly beautiful.