That tender, broken place

"For a broken and contrite heart, God will not refuse."

It's funny how God works sometimes...

Last night, having fun typing up names of horses that for the most part, it's their photos I recall. Horses that, for the most part, are no longer grazing the good, green pastures of earth.

Just now, a close friend who'd read that post sent a poem to me by a tender-hearted cowboy poet, a piece about his father listing the names of the horses he'd known. The poem, perfect in every letter, hit too close to the bone...too close to the nerve, and I know something about nerves.

I started to cry a bit, you know what I mean...that part of you that you call your heart, the Bible calls your heart, but it feels deeper than that invaluable organ, and it, that fragile and very real place inside you that rarely is felt, seems to arise from the center of your brain, not your chest, just like pain, which scientists say starts in the brain, not in the wound. Like lightning amazingly starts in the ground, not in the heavens the way our eyes tell us is true.

Tender-hearted, I left the page that poem lay upon, needing to step away from the precipice of falling into that place, that cavern of what is real and pure. It hurts too much, physically. So, I came here to this blog, to read those horses' epithets again, but God had holy plans.

The music on this site began to play, and Casting Crowns sang their annointed words, "Who I am." And I suddenly stopped reading the mundane words I'd written.

And something tugged at something deeper.

And I didn't step back this time.

I allowed it, I heard the lyrics, the instruments, the harmonies, the power in the notes, the blendings of the strings, piano, drums, all voices coming together in something deep but High.

Deep...but High.

Heavenly music, words about me. I am nothing. I am nothing, my brain cried from behind my burning eyes. I know the truth of that, but to feel it again...I am a flower quickly fading, a wave tossed in the ocean, a vapor in the wind, still You hear me when I'm calling, You catch me when I'm falling and told me who I am....I am Yours....

deep...but high.

Then the next song, Casting Crowns again, "I will praise you in this storm." Listen to the words...FEEL them....t r y

deep...but high

...and holy.

I thought by now You'd have come down and wiped away our tears. Yet I am left here crying, and after I say Amen, it's still raining, and yes, I will lift my hands, I will praise You in this storm, and though my heart is torn, I will praise You in this storm...

My aching throat whispering the lyrics because singing brings pain, my aching arms lifted to Him, worthy, the "maker of heaven and earth," my nose runs, my tears run, my hands hold up my heavy head which my weak neck cannot hold, so that I feel my tears running down my forearms to my elbows, to the desk, and I see myself, being rolled into surgery, that lonely, lonely road down whitewashed, cold halls with staff joking with each other but not with you, not with you, you are heading for no-man's land and uncertainty and it takes faith to do it, and knowing He is there, in the power of these words...

Jesus take the wheel....save me from this road I'm on....I'm letting go, so give me one more chance oh, Jesus take the wheel....

and words I'd sung cut deep

deep...but high

and voices given by God ring out His praises and, in that tender moment, I thought of you, and prayed that every reader here hears this music, has their volume turned up, hears these words, and no, they may not cut deep this time, but you too will someday be in that tender spot...

deep...but high...

I listened to them so many times when their words held truth for me, but not from inside that deep, tender place that we avoid yet we long for

I prayed, please Lord, let them hear this, let them hear You....to find that deep deep profound place, broken, tender, pure, honest, bare, painful, beautiful, intense, unearthly, surreal yet real, what truly, oh God, what Heaven must be, what Heaven is, this place deep inside all of us, in that brain, where all the time, we think and think and think, and our thoughts own us, but once in a spiritual moment, we touch heaven and it is there, there, behind our eyes...

deep but high