Restless

Here I sit listening to the sounds of the end of a summer evening. My window looks down and over the treetops, sheds, shrubs and fences that grid out the patch of earth confined between the backs of two terraced streets. My room is tiny, but I love the perch here at my window, with the edge of the sunset visible over the backs of the houses behind me and a fresh breeze cooling the little box of a space that is my bedroom.

There is something about the end of a summer evening that makes my heart restless. It's easily my favourite time of day, and all the more so this time of year when I can interact with it through the open window. Somehow it stirs an ache in my heart that deeply connects me with the beauty of the moment and yet reminds me more than just about anything else I can think of that there is more than what my eyes can see. As if somehow as I take in the brief evening, the beauty of what I can see, hear, smell, taste and touch is only there to reassure me that all things pass away. That I can't hold on to any of it, or make it stay by my sheer will, no matter how beautiful it is. It makes me ache for what I cannot see and stirs a longing for all the things that God has promised me that I don't yet see. 

Tonight I feel desperate to hold in my hands the dreams and promises He gave that in the present moment I only hold in my heart. But I also ache for Him - to see His face, to hold onto Him, to be embraced by Him in the same way I long for and miss my family who are so many thousands of miles away from this window where I sit tonight. I find wishes appearing in my mind as the first stars appear in the twilight. Wishes for connection, meaning, significance, fulfilment and deeper intimacy with God and with the people in my life. 

I love the ache because it reminds me that I am alive. The beauty of life is in the moments that go so quickly. But if they lasted as long as I sometimes wish, I don't think I would treasure them as I do. The beauty of life is revealed in what it requires of us. The straining and toil until the seeds of dreams that cost me so much, that I planted in sacrifice and watered with my own tears, become fruitful. The beauty is going out sowing with tears, wondering if it's all worth it, and coming back delirious with joy and arms full of the fruit of what was once only a distant hope.

To live is to hope. Hope is restless. Hope is beautiful.