By Sarah Are | A Sanctified Art LLC | sanctifiedart.org

 

 

I’m not the first.

That’s what I tell myself when I wake up in

     the wilderness—

Big sky, worried heart, wondering which way

     to start.

I have been here before.

We have been here before.

For as long as there has been creation,

There has been wilderness.

 

First it was an endless void,

Until God and God’s paintbrush painted the

     sky gold.  

And then it was all that lies east of Eden,

Which is everywhere that our story unfolds.

 

So like a child memorizing their home address,

You’d think I’d learn my way out of

     this wilderness. 

But like the Israelites who wandered for forty

     plus years,  

I think I’ll spend most of my day to day here.

For the wilderness is everywhere that I start

     to grow.

 

Cracks in the sidewalk, daisies take hold.

And the wilderness is every single place

     of unknown,  

Or when shame and fear move into my home.

And the wilderness is where dusty feet tread,

Familiar with the truth that we have days left.

 

So where is God, you ask?

 

God is in the big sky and in my worried heart.

God is the sidewalk cracks where new

     life starts. 

God is in the realization that I am not the first.

So may we take these limited days left  

And remember that we’ve been here before—

God and I and this untamed world.

God and the Israelites and the

     gathered assembly.  

God and the horizon and the new

     day beginning.