shatter

Sometimes this ocean I live in is too big for words. I've sat down to write numerous times, but found myself unable to follow the currents of thoughts because there have been so many moving so quickly. This winter I have dreamt a lot about the ocean, always wild and out of control. In one particular dream, there were tsunami waves so large the current sucked the water miles out to sea before the waves came. As I lay curled up under one of the waves, certain of my death, the water froze over me. When I reached up to touch the wave, it shattered like glass.

In describing her conversion, Rosaria Butterifeld attacks the modern evangelical tendency to minimize the offense of sin. As she describes it, "Sin lurks in our heart and grabs us by the throat to do its bidding." Oy. She must have been reading some John Owen. Lately I've felt sin's stranglehold on my neck, rendering me mute and making every breath an act of faithful endurance. I suspect the Lord has shut my mouth to keep me from saying anything terribly stupid. For that mercy I'm infinitely thankful.

So I lay here curled up, waiting for the crashing waves to be stilled, for the water to shatter like glass, for breath and words and a voice.