I’m afraid about the future.  I know not what it holds.  I know not who will take hold of my hand as I journey forward on this path—and who will slip from my grasp.  Sometimes I want to escape the present.  Sometimes I wish to see what is ahead.  Sometimes I long for the past.  Sometimes I feel trapped.  Time is holding me back.  And yet other times, I ache that moments and days might somehow last forever.  I wish that time would stand still—that it would no longer push me forward, take away the things and people I love, bring change. 

Why does everything and everyone have to change so?  Why does good seem to lose, innocence perish, love fade?  How I sometimes wish that I could go back in time, to a moment with a lost friend, and have one more conversation with them.  How I sometimes wish I could tell them the things I never did, never thought of, that perhaps would have kept them from changing so.  How I sometimes wish everything in this life, even promises made and friends and family, my true treasures, were not so very, very temporary.

Even the promises I make fail.  Even I change.  Even I am no longer innocent to things I do not want to know of and do not want to accept about this world and do not want to fear.  Even I stop loving.  Even I learn to hate.  Even I cease to dream.  Even I, all alone, cannot feel safe and free from this terrible mystery that time is.  For one day, even I will die.

I seek to hold fast to something.  I seek to know one person—just one friend—who will not change.  Someone who will never betray.  Who will never leave me.  Who will never stop loving, never stop dreaming, never be tainted by the cruel callousness of this world.  Someone who will make me alive.  Someone who will teach me to be free.  Someone with whom I will feel a child again—completely in the moment, able to love and trust, rest and run, laugh and cry without shame, as only children can.  I wish for someone to hold me fast, that I would not have to hold on so, for I cannot believe that even my tightest grasp would last.  For all has failed me in the past.  And how weary I am!

All that has been created finds fulfillment.  The stars know the sky.  The flowers are met by sunlight and rain to make them grow and coax them to bloom.  The birds find food and rest, joy with dawn’s first rays, and when all is hid, hope anew with each spring thaw.  Yet I seem to have lost my place.  I wait and I wait and I wait, yet this world sheds no light nor does it welcome me as I am and encourage me to be all that I know I can be.  I hunger, I thirst, search for a place to lay my head, try to smile, yet all is quiet, and not mine.  I dream of a home that is always secure, always welcoming, always warm, always peaceful, and that will always be mine.

I dream of beauty that would not wither nor fade nor set with the sun nor be proven untrue to its gentle hues.  I have not this beauty, I have thorns.  I know not what it feels like to be treasured as such by this world, and wish that I could.  But thorns I have, and they pierce deep.  For upon a crude, rugged Cross hangs the One I know would Love me forever. In His Face, in His Eyes, I see the pain.  And upon His Head, piercing His Flesh, I see a twisted, sharp crown.  This is the One whose Heart beat for me.  This is One, who remained unchanging, even unto death for me.  Oh, how You treasured me!

I want to know You as that Friend that always cares, is there, whom I will always know well.  I want to be contented by true friendship again.  I want my heart to rest in Yours and find that Home that is never dark, nor cold, nor empty.  I want to always belong.  I want to be Yours.  For in Your Hands I see scars that bear my name.  And Your Side bears the mark of a Heart vulnerable to my slightest thought, broken, and pierced through.  Now I realize, You are the One, near You the place, where I finally felt at Home.

Especially now, time stands still and will not move forward nor backwards.  Especially now, I wish to escape.  Even cease to exist.  Yet I dread the future.  And only regret the past.  I see the Blood and Water flow.  I know the guilt.  My hand held the nails, and I broke the Heart, and I thrust the spear.  It was my sin, my failures, my mistakes that hung Him there.  What have I done?  Now all is lost.  Upon my knees I fall and let the tears flow.  For all is gone.  Now all is gone.

But wait . . .

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