Sheltered from the storm

Sometimes I feel I’m cracking like an old painting.

Grandma left her artwork hanging over my mother’s walls. I don’t know how much, but it’s enough to cover every wall.

I’ve always thought it the most beautiful my eyes ever saw, it’s the one I got to know and value, I always thought her skilled hands higher than most. Not that I knew many, but her colors have been enough to grant beauty to my days growing up.

I’ve said time and al again that I’m not the person I used to be, that I know myself forever and irrevocably changed is something I’ve repeated here like a broken record; and it’s ok. My body’s strong as of late, and I can think and see and my heartbeat has been steadier for months; I can forget, sleep, learn and even fear the One worth fearing,

But still, inside, some days I feel I’m cracking like an old painting.

I would think it a part of life now, the being understood even by the art on the walls, when no words come to mind to make sense of the passing of every minute, hour, day.

I wondered if there could be a way of fixing the painting before I found myself in it, looking at the very state of my soul;

It’s aged, but it’s still trying to hold on.

The rest of the painting’s fine, it’s just a portion very small,

there’s no one left to fix it.

But that’s not my case, right, Lord?

This learning to fear, to Your fixing everything will lead, right?

Right.

I wish I was not changed but new, with a memory loss heavens high; huge.

I can see where all of this may lead, but is it true?

And will our captivity be turned around at last?

I have new paintings, too. They all talk about You.

Do You like them? Could You smile with them, perhaps?

I remember this day, it must have been some seven or eight years ago, when I told one of my cousins that I felt on top of the world; we were out having a meal with our parents. My Grandma was gone by then, but Grandpa was there and I saw him smiling while watching all of us eat. My cousin asked why and I just signaled all around, our table. My family was there, and we were enjoying ourselves. No storms then and there.

He just shook his head, “You need to get out more,” was all he said.

To him this wasn’t enough.

But who would’ve known by then, understood, that to me it was everything? Having a family. A full-loving one. I had thought this was it, but then the painting started cracking. To them this was nothing. It always was.

It always will be.

But this is not about them, either. Not anymore. They’re in my books, after all, forever torn from my heart.

That wasn’t it. That day, I mean.

I’ve seen more sorrowful days after those, but joyful too. I know enough about the world to love home better.

Lord, could You fix the painting?

I want to know the missing pieces too, I don’t want to disappear from over the canvas, first dry, then broken and then nothing.

Can You fix it all?

Before the painting, I said I would’ve followed my heart to the ends of the earth;

But now I think it is You the one I’d follow even beyond the ends of the world.

-SFTS