There was a moment when I was in the Tallinn one weekend, where I sat in a concrete courtyard in-between a few apartment buildings by an underground cafe.
The concrete below and around me didn't feel like a prison, but rather an inviting spot for rest.
Branches, leaves, and flowers in a full summer bloom surrounded the area.
Above me there was no ceiling, just a straight seemingly possible shot to the heavens.
In this moment I found peace.
My mind was interrupted by a bird that continued to revisit the area on the table I was sitting at between my journal and my forearm. A mere few inches.
The bird, blue with highlights of yellow, so delicate in sight cocked its head, and then nodded at me. It stared at me in an inviting way as if to say, "it's nice to see you again, can I rest here for a moment with you?"
He then stayed. Rested. Shook himself awake and flew away.
I love this memory. And sitting in a familiar spot of rest for me at home, I was reminded of this.
It began with you.
Staring, communicating. Genuinely loving on the person you're speaking to, at least with your actions. You are so present.
It's really just beautiful.
This day. This moment. This is a Kairos moment. A perfect image.
So perfect that I'm sad I have nothing but my mind my pen a journal to remember it.
But for that I am so thankful.
Not only am I blessed with eyes to actually see this, but I am sweetly broken by a past and a life of sin to better appreciate it.
Not just some mess-ups, but dirty, rotten, broken, shameful.
Sin.
I want to revel in this. I wish I could paint it.
The beauty of this conversation I'm getting to whiteness, the way you drink of your coffee mug, is so strategic. The posture you take in thinking-processing. Reflecting.
You, stranger, really are beautiful.
I do not know you.
I know not of your heart, of your story.
This is all speculation...but how beautiful is that? That I get to speculate, not judge, but imagine a life, a heart.
You.
I notice things more deeply in moments like this. I am more present. Every hair blowing in the wind lightly dancing over my face. My skin on the metal chair beneath me, the grit of the cement beneath my chair, the stone table lightly touching my propped-up leg.
I am reminded of a different time.
Years
moments
lessons
and countries ago.
I am reminded of the bird on my table, of someone playing piano nearby, of Tallinn. Somewhere that feels so much like home; I am reminded of in my home.
My memory is broken-
interrupted, by your laughter. Your mind. Your words.
Beautiful
Strategic
Heavy
Overlooking me.
It doesn't matter whether you care or know I am here. I really don't care.
I am enjoying this moment.
The Lord is speaking to me through you, stranger, as he so often does.
This place. This outside patio.
The man next to me under a perfect-almost-unreal-tree.
Smoking. Reading. Journaling.
Living his own chronos.
This has always fascinated me: people walking their lives, living their own chronos, and for tiny and deeply intimate moments, they cross.
only to continue in different trajectories.
My mind in interrupted again.
A bird on the nearby curb. The horn of a car blown on the very-near road.
"Hey, Samantha. Welcome back. Remember me? Reality?"
Yes, friend. I do.
The journey I've taken in my mind is over. I am again reminded of myself. My physical being, my near surroundings. My interruptions.
My failures.
My faults.
My lacking.
But in all of this, my beauty; my identity.
I'm also reminded of all that I am not.
I am thankful for that.
Humbling.
Dreaming.
Desiring.
True.
These moments where I escape into the freedom so deep that I've been given in Christ.
To be present.
To dream.
To notice.
To care.
I don't get enough of these, and I desire them so deeply.
Then I hear my Father say,
"So, have them. They are yours. I have given them to you."
I want beauty.
"You are."
I want love.
"You are."
I want desire.
"You are."
I want you. To be yours.
"You. Are. Mine."
Thank you Abba Father.
Lover. Comforter. Provider. Protector.
"Vivira, respira."
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