The Future: The Woman at the Door and the Girl Inside

Today, I am blogging and all I can think about is how much I love the smell of oranges. When I peel an orange, my whole world can brighten; the sunny, deep citrus colour that wipes away the odours of the past.  Sometimes I wish life could be as easy as this: peeling away the rough, bitter skin then sinking my teeth into the sweetness of life - leaving behind the rinds of unhappy memories to embrace the road ahead. The uncertain road ahead that always beckons me, twisting and winding up the mountains, through the trees and onto snow covered trails.

The Child and the Woman

I once dreamed that I landed on a beach: white sand, sky so blue, I could inhale it into my lungs, but the stillness was strangely eerie.  I walked up this beach and I began to see dead bodied lying all over the place: bodies of young men and women cut down at the prime of their life.  I began to run towards a house, but when I opened the door, all I found were dead bodies and blood everywhere.  I was terrified.  Everyone was dead. I began to cry uncontrollably.  In the middle of my tears, a man spoke to me, called me by my name, and it felt like I knew him all my life.  A man so safe, so kind, so strong, all my fears evaporated.  I could stand with him in the middle of death without fear.

This is the woman I want to be: strong enough to stand in the middle of death and disappointment.  But the girl inside of me is always doubtful.  She is the one that longs to play in the hills of her childhood, surrounded by wild hibiscus flowers, rice paddies, and always walking toward sun rises.  She is the one who doubts, grieves and experiences the death of a thousand dreams.  She is also the one laughs crazily, it is the woman who hides her voice behind the composure of adulthood.    

The Woman at the Door 

This woman who is connected to the generations of women before her, surviving wars, famines, floods, and intolerable violence.  And if you ask my mother, she will tell you, she sees my paternal grandmother in me.  I use to wonder what father thought when so many of our relatives said that I looked like his mother.  I wonder if she was told, she was beautiful, strong, and courageous.  I wonder how she bore her pain and joy, waiting for rain storms to pass and breathing the fragrance of dew on the leaves of ancient bamboo forests.  I wonder what they would say of me, face tilted towards prairie blue skies and golden wheat fields, inhaling the fragrance of citrus.   "You, O Lord, keep my lamp burning: my God turns my darkness into light.  With your help I can advance against a troop, with my God I can scale a wall".

The lineage in Hebrews is about blood, forgiveness, strength and hope.  He has paid the price, so we may have life.