made to fly

It feels like an eternity since I last blogged. Really it’s only been since January, but the past 16 months have been such a time of transformation for me that it’s been nearly impossible to still my heart and mind long enough to lasso a specific thought or emotion. I’ll likely never be able to chronicle the devastating and glorious events or the miraculous works that have taken place in the last chapter but they, along with the ongoing story I’m living, will surely inspire, inform and shape my creative endeavors from here on.

Some days it feels as if God is playing a cruel joke on me but I know it’s not true, and even on those days I am confident of His never-stopping pursuit of me, Sarah Pay, former caged butterfly, daughter of the Most High. As I’ve taken a step back, bowing less frequently to the idols of balance and order, perspective has rescued me from despair and I have the occasional glimpse of future glory…but, oh, how it makes me long for heaven.

Even though I’m more proficient at shaping materials than words, I have a passion for beautifully crafted language, but I have to rely on the poets and wordsmiths when I feel lost to help articulate my groanings. So…I have always viewed life as a story and I can’t help but to order it into chapters. There are far too many ironies, allusions, themes, characters and sub-plots for me to ever get my head around the big picture but I feel delight when I’m gifted with “getting” something that points me back to the greater whole. What an amazing author I have writing my story.

So if you’ll allow me to continue with the literary analogy, something has happened in the story.  I believe it’s a turning point…I don’t know for sure, but I hope. You see, for some time I have struggled with a lack of continuity in life, that has turned into a lack of connectedness with others and myself. There have been so many separate subjects to process from marriage, to creativity, sexuality, community and parenting that I feel crazy. From time to time I come to a hope kindling intersection but generally I feel as if I deal with one issue as another falls by the wayside. It doesn’t seem right. For years I have sensed that there is a place of holistic awareness that will cause my wings to spread and give my heart the courage to fly but I never stumble upon “that place”. As one who often feels caged, I’ve always been deeply curious about freedom and I’m beginning to believe that everything I write, create or even breathe comes from this insatiable desire to be free. I know that I’ll only experience that freedom in the person of Jesus Christ but finally I’m realizing that I’ll never be as free as I’m going to be, and that in itself allows me to fly a little further away from the mason jar I once called home.

So as I fly above with a bit more of a holistic perspective on life I present to myself a challange…a challenge to connect the themes that I face today. There are three: the journey to redemption in the story of my sexuality, my frustration in my role as a mother and the awareness that my soul suffers when I don’t create. I have no idea what this endeavor will look like but I’m eager to begin the journey.  Hold me Jesus.