This December blog is brought to you by the word Behold with a hint of prose.

 

Behold.

 

In autumn

Sun

greets the day

full of reds and oranges,

golds and yellows.

 

Leaves – once green,

crisp up, curling in

the drying air

loosening their grip

upon dogwood trees.

 

 

 

Hey, flutter on down

to the browning lawn.

Now

make way for

frosted rest in winter.

 

Watch rest

turn to

giddy buds in spring,

greening days of flowering April

just before all

turns again to

laughing sweet humid

of summer.

 

 

 

So, too, Lord,

I greet the day…

 

full of reds

blushing love

collapsed grief

jerky frustration

 

full of oranges

gaunt melancholy

(Of what was

but isn’t,

Of what is

but isn’t fully yet)

unfulfilled now

yet seeded

with goodness

still

to come

 

full of golds and yellows

bronzed by fire

raw refinement

shambled loss,

shimmered hope,

bolder and sassy in the wait

 

Aching for all of You to

Engulf all of me.

 

 

***

 

Behold.

 

I stumble awake, disoriented by time set back.

 

I halt, apprehended by

this wondrousness,

 

“the Word became flesh

and dwelt among us

and we beheld His glory”

 

 

Whatever grabs at me,

seeks to

hinder

obstruct

impede

entangle

yet

nothing can

hold me

forever

frozen…

 

I thaw in Your Presence.

 

 

Behold.

 

The Word,

You, Jesus,

You the glorious,

became

 

You, Lord, could have chosen otherwise.

You might have stayed heaven-side.

 

In Your coming for us,

Dwelling here on this fallen earth

Among the likes of folks like us,

us who stumble and bumble along,

You declared

And keep on declaring

Your wondrous love of us.

 

 

When we

behold You,

When we

truly see

how magnificent

Your coming for us

truly is,

We behold glory…

whiffs of heaven

hints

reminders

clues

where home is.

 

All Spring and Summer,

lingering long in the Gospels,

I find my hand covering my mouth,

eyes widened,

Wonder presses into me.

I want to share

this experience of giddiness…

 

Did you see what Jesus did there, and there, and there?

 

 

I love beholding Jesus.

 

What happens when you behold Him?

 

I love being held by Jesus.

I lean back against Him,

thump, thump, thump,

sounds surround me,

His kind-wild heart.

 

How can it be that this wondrous Jesus smiles in delight over me, over you?

 

I find my bearings in You, the One who bore all for me.

 

When summer shifted to

unpredictable moody autumn

cresting towards drafty winter,

light & breezy tumbled upside down,

Jesus, You didn’t miss a beat.

You sidled up,

tucked me in so close to Your chest.

 

I burst into fiery tears and fiery hope at the same moment.

 

 

Behold.

 

What’s brought a lump to your throat as you and Jesus simply be together?

 

What’s made you feel it’s all impossibly difficult

and yet strangely not difficult at all?

 

What’s Jesus done

with you

and for you

in your unexpected moment?

 

Advent invites a long wait, wait, wait.

 

Here, we return again

to the memory

and the hope,

the birth of the One

who is our First Love,

Jesus.

 

Come behold Him

dwelling with us,

dwelling for us,

dwelling over us,

 

Let Advent cut apart

hollowed-out sorrows

in you, in me,

 

Again, turn.

 

 

Behold.

 

Jesus inclines His ear,

Inquires ever so kindly,

ever so curious,

“Who do you say I am?”

 

“Jesus,

“You are the One

who infuses all my days

with hope,

amid the hard,

with holy,

amid the hilarious.

 

You arrive for me.

 

I behold the wonder

of You.

 

How marvelous You are.”

 

 

 

Behold.

 

Behold.

 

Be Held.