Sheltered from the storm

My Sweet Summer’s Hope

It’s been more than four years.
No, I’m not the same anymore.

It’s been more than ten years…
No, I’m not the one from before.
Things were lost, I saw the dust…
until in came my Sweet Summer’s Hope,

many were the nights
where I begged someone to stay,

many the days when I couldn’t breathe
because loneliness became my own self,
trying to find life… lost and overwhelmed.

He didn’t stay.
And he never came back.
Nothing did. No arms to run to…
just to feel safe.

Here was already calling… my Sweet Summer’s Hope.

There’s happy, in my Sweet Summer’s Hope.
No happier memories come to mind from the past able to
overthrow the ones I have now, coming from His hands,
Nor sad ones wanting to blur my sight…
I still lay awake for a moment, some nights, but nothing in me
screams or hurts, all thanks to my Sweet Summer’s Hope.
Even in the waiting, no madness stays long enough to have
me feel like there’s nothing more inside than screams or cries.

I’m on the dock, but how I love the light to come, it’s
coming, it’s building, it’s nearing with open arms, I lived.
Someone ran my way…
Forever changed, but I was given life.
I was given a home and a new, stronger, beating heart.
He’s my home, mine, my Sweet Summer’s Hope; calling me alive.
Oh, how I love the light to come,
because it’s my Sweet Summer’s Hope.
Oh, how I got to breathe again, how He got me here,
And gave me this, an everlasting life, a home, and this sweet sweet hope.
Oh, how He spoke, how He moved,
surely I live,

there’s no past,

All thanks to His forever open arms.

-M. Y. Valencia Parroquín

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I cannot forget… because this is my whole life. Everything I’ve known.

Something’s changed around me in a way hard to explain. Recently I figured out that some parts of me I’ve erased, parts I wasn’t meant to erase. I was used to tie my joy to things I could control, like food or music. By this point, if you know me, you know I lost both. I lost food as I knew it because I couldn’t go on as I was, and music too, because I was losing myself to the sounds of every broken being on earth. That was me then, the little girl in the purple picture up there. Falling, and falling, broken. When I looked unto the One from the poem you just read, He became my Hope and started teaching me how to live little by little. The thing is, in order to follow Him, I left a whole life behind, and things that would’ve seemed innocent, left with the whole of it. These I suffered, but because I didn’t want to be angry or fight my One lifeline, I just let them go and started seeing great transformations not long after. These changes somewhat made up for everything, because I’ve found a strange life within me, the one instilled by His life in my heart. What I didn’t notice, or didn’t want to, at least, was that I also became a whole different person. I was used to be more festive. I loved planning gatherings for friends and family, for instance and playing jolly music real loud. But because people failed and food had to change and music was silenced… I began hating the idea of celebrating anything ever again. This would be alright if along with it my heart hadn’t changed, as my soul did. I never feel excited, nor happy or giddy anymore. I laugh at silly things my family do… but cannot seem to look at myself in the future with a joyful face. This is a problem. If you follow God, if you know Christ, you know this is a problem. I dread everything. Not my God, not Him… but everything here on earth I do, as if there was no good future coming, which goes against His words spoken over His people… so in a way I cannot seem to find hope anymore. Only barely enough to survive. This is what has had me angry as of late, that my only portion seems to be to just survive… although the anger has subsided these past days.

It’s like the dark dark days had extended for so long that something in me was ready to never see the light again and I’d given up. Like I’ve finally given up. I lived, but now I’ll just wait dormant, surrounded by ashes.

The problem is I think I’ve been hearing the Lord call, trying to tell me hopeful days have started and I don’t seem to be able to listen. To believe. Not anymore. I waited too long. I turned into ashes in Nebuchadnezzar’s fire. And this is a lie, I know it. It goes against every one of His works, deeds, words and promises.

So what do I do?

What can I do?

Nevertheless when the Son of Man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?

I have heard a soft whisper remind me these words for some days now, and I nod every time. I want this to be fixed too.

If you’ve read my Spanish entries, you know that for every thing I let go of there was a token full of life:

Food became healing.

Music became silence for a long time, but then it turned into a sort of lifeline moving my heart to Christ by the voices who sang to or about Him; words that could’ve easily been mine. I felt understood once again, but I was now calling, and doing it through light and love. Some of it was still sad, nevertheless, because I’ve grown up sad. I call unto Him with tears on my eyes ninety-nine percent of the time.

The thing is, there’s been this new song on the explore page from my music streaming service from one of the artists I’ve listened to the most these last years, one of the ones that seemed to understand me well while turning towards the Lord. She has this nostalgic-with-a-brush-of-sorrow sound I’ve loved from the beginning. I would’ve run to listen to her new song had the name not been “Shouts of joy”. I didn’t. So there it stayed, the suggested song, for days. Last night, before going to sleep, I saw it again.

Play the song, I heard. I sighed, nodding like every time. The voice sounded like He just wanted to say, “Oh, just play the song,” or “Will you just play the song?” and right now it somewhat makes me smile.

I did. I fell asleep to it. She left her nostalgic sounds behind.

But she had these new ones that sounded like a dream.

And then? She starts singing about being healed.

She craved hope, and healing, and believing and falling to her knees in surrender, leaving it all behind, before. Now she sang about singing a new song of praise and goodness and love as if she, indeed, had been rescued after having cried out for years.

She waited, He finally answered.

His love never fails, she sang, and that she put her tears in the soil and somehow now she’s reaping shouts of joy. This comes from Psalm 126, I’ve read it.

I’ve read it and found it hard to believe every time because… when?

But her song sounded different for another reason too:

It felt as if she was linking her words to her past sounds and responding to them the way a parallel instant would. It sounded like she lived it. Like she’s finally seen it.

And then… another one I had been meaning to listen to but had forgotten to made it’s way to me this morning and the moment I remembered and played it, I heard it start with a sound I would only describe as hopeful… this one talked about Psalm 23. I had to stop and listen this time. He is calling. He wants me to tie my Joy to Him now, not hurt, not food, not people or times; because He is, and because only He is, it will be in safe hands. The only place.

Maybe He’s been trying to tell me He’s just over the neighboring hill, and if I go out and avert my eyes, He’s visible now. Has He really been too long? Shouldn’t the mere thought of it be overcome by His beautiful face I can see?

I’m not holding on for dear life now, maybe that’s what He wants me to see, that He’s here, nearing and nearing… and He does indeed carry many good days in His wings. I should rejoice now, over the hills, because He’s here.

Maybe the doors of the prison have finally been opened.

Alright, then. No more dread.

Acaso no he visto aquí al que me ve?

-SFTS

Circumstances don’t match the thought of future hope, much less present one… but I do believe in Him. I’ve heard His words before and they made me sad, and without wanting things to be destroyed they were, they got to be exactly what I had heard from Him they would be… learnt to fear they would be. So why wouldn’t I believe Him now?

I do.

Restore our fortunes, Lord,
    like streams in the Negev.
⁵ Those who sow with tears
    will reap with songs of joy.
⁶ Those who go out weeping,
    carrying seed to sow,
will return with songs of joy,
    carrying sheaves with them.

Psalm 126:4-6

I don’t know anything but I do know You, that You’re good. That You’ve loved me. That You’ve kept me my whole life; You wont ever stop.