Even though it feels like it came out of nowhere: that moment on the road when the cd he must have found while you were out of town, must have put into the car's player when he drove to the city  to have a part serviced starts, startlingly, playing instead of the veggie tales cd that should have been in the slot.  That cd that really spoke to you a decade ago screams at you, now.  And not in a sweet, siren way but in a scathing, how did I get here and where did I turn and Father I need time with you now-- right now, time, like earbuds in, no schedule, coffee in a hand and my red journal that has long been filled and a pen and time.

You pull back into town and the Bible study you were supposed to attend is suddenly canceled, your husband is in a meeting, you DO in fact have a coffee in your hand and, after shooting a quick message to your inlaws, you turn up the heat, draw the curtains, put that same music over the speaker and you sit there in your bed with your God and His words and you weep.  

It didn't come out of nowhere.  Just last week in the shower you had the sudden urge to write gratitude and so you appeased yourself with a hasty post.  You've been soaking in 1 John instead of your phone most mornings.  You've been so aware of the little souls at your feet who are learning about the God found in the tone of your voice, the warmth (or dimness) of your eyes, the words you pray and the songs you sing and the things you choose to marvel or not over.  

And at night you and he have been brutally honest with each other while reading through the marriage book you naively gifted him.  Unaware that the growing and strengthening that might come out of the pages would hurt and cause you to doubt things you've tidily packaged away before they would bolster.  Is there anything more vulnerable than being opened and measured by your person?

Yes.  You didn't think so but then that music played and now you remember.

It's a long road home, friends, when you've been slowly and cooly drifting away from that first flame. I find myself so easily justified because my hormones, my pregnancy, my toddlers, my lack of sunshine and fellowship and community.  It is so easy to blame my smallness on this town or closed doors or seasons.  

And then that music hits you.  Music you listened to in the days when you would hole up in coffee shops for whole mornings, tights and heels and waterproof mascara on, but mostly with a raw, hungry heart that yearned for Great Things.  And how did those Great Things get replaced by whatever I have been labeling as great lately: well behaved children, financial security, paint, gear, furniture.  How did I lose track of the war between light and dark and when did my heart get so cool gray?  

I've tried to say this before and I will try again:  that music hits you and your eyes open and you realize you've been kissing the dust at His feet instead of His feet.  You've been lost in your tears instead of His heart.  You forgot your first love (you're no more brilliant than the Old Testament Israelites were, wandering for decades in a desert just outside the promised land) and here is the sweet, sweet reality-- He is so easy to return to.  Three measures into a song, He's there.  He'll hunt you down and tug you back and those pieces of your heart that He has marked will brag, boast, absolutely scream to you memories of His goodness, His perfect kindness even in the dismantling, realigning, killing of things you allowed to grow in His place.