"This Week, I Remember"

The drive is the same. Nine years haven’t really changed the route other than the trees that line the interstate are much larger, hiding new developments along the way. Last week, I was driving this route again as I do every weekend. Yet, I chose to wait a few more hours, moving my leaving from Sunday evening to 5:30am on Monday morning. I knew when to leave. The birds told me with a full chorus of “Morning Has Broken”, preparing for the event that they knew would come! Each little one knew to begin their song just before daybreak.

I thought that I remembered every single detail of that June morning in 2001. I thought I remembered every color, every gold-lined cloud and the very moment when the sun appeared. I remembered it to be so overwhelming to me, so breath-taking that I pulled off of the interstate and cried … and I heard God say, “Write again. It has been too long. But this time write for me.” I thought that I remembered everything.

I realized that nine years had faded some colors, had swept away some of the gold-lined clouds from my memory, had kept me from being blinded by the beauty of sunrises. Last week, I drove into the sunrise. A light fog hovered on the tops of tall grass and gathered more densely around the rivers along the route. Each mile brought with it more beauty and more surprises, more teals and blues, more peaches and pinks in the sky. The clouds were again gold-lined. At the very place where I heard God speak to me nine years ago, the sun seemed to rise quickly and with spectacular beauty. I heard, “Remember, I am the same, then as now. Forever.”

June 18, 2001 was the day when I first heard God say “Write again.” Few know how loving that gift was to me. I had written since childhood and kept all of my writings. In the late 60’s, something changed. I took every piece of writing that I had saved and ripped them up. And I stopped writing. I had allowed anger to strip me of the one thing that I loved to do. I had shredded the one passion in my life and almost proudly replaced it with a wall of protection. No more writing … until God’s love for me said, “Enough. Write again and start with my beautiful sunrise.”

June 18, 2001 … a morning of overwhelming beauty … and overwhelming love. Last week, I had an hour’s drive on an early Monday morning. Nothing much has changed along the route except that my days have been filled with thanksgiving … and there is writing once again.

This week, I remember …
anna