My breath pushes too heavy upon my chest; my lungs overtaken by some unseen force alien to me.

In an instant all hope spills like beans from a bag burst open…suddenly scattered…useless.

I am altogether undone.

At the end of me, there’s a place I didn’t know about before.

It’s like a stream hiding deep in the forest waiting for a visitor.

Then all at once it moves and I hear the bubbling of water breaking on the hard rock of my heart.

It hurts and I grow weary with myself.

I can’t say why I didn’t conquer the rapids years ago.

I guess I thought they’d become a distant memory lost beneath brighter things.

God doesn’t heal in part; He’s after everything.

Beneath the cracking of the surface, there’s a grace that won’t leave me standing there half finished.

There’s persistence in the movement of living water through human nature.

Refusing to leave me broken, the process continues.

I rise from beneath the surface, alive…nevertheless, not I, Christ in me.

Hope of glory, don’t leave me alone tonight.