psalm v

God, my parched heart cries out to You from the desert land,
Soaking up every dewdrop of joy that is left by Your Spirit.
Forty-nine days and counting,
Sustained only by the promise of Your presence.

The heat bears down, oppressive, choking me all around and waging war between my body and spirit,
A war to which my body’s most instinctive response is to flee back to the fictitious safety of the place You’re rescuing me from,
A place where I would be content to remain the same — unchanged, untouched, unhealed, stagnant — if it meant that my deepest desires might be superficially satisfied.

But I have tasted Your goodness:
The clouds that roll in to hide the sun,
Striking my face with winds of relief and hope,
Lifting my soul from its depths,
Leaving just enough moisture --
No more, no less --
On the ground to sustain me until the next wave of shade and peace.
This perfect amount of satiation keeps me trudging forward,
Even after the clouds of Your goodness and the winds of relief and hope have departed from me,
Subjecting me once more to the sun’s overbearing heat.

Yet through this furnace You are purifying my soul — changing me, touching me, healing me, reviving me —,
Bringing up impurities so deeply bound in me as a person that they could only be melted away by this white-hot blaze I find myself engulfed in.

And because I have tasted the goodness of Your glory and presence I persist,
Convinced that it will be more than worth it to --
After trudging through the desert land one step at a time,
Sustained by just enough to press on until my next taste of Your joy --
Lift my golden mane up to the sky and soak in the torrential downpour You will send,
The next glory You have prepared for me.