Hope & Fear

Hoping
Wishing to be free
Like a penguin ready to make its first dive.  

But afraid to make mistakes.
Distrust of myself.  
Afraid to take a leap without their voices going for me.  
Afraid to step out from under their wings.  

I’m afraid.  
What if’s cloud my mind. 
I stop, stop to check what I’m doing.  
So upset, my heart is pulled to pieces. 

Thinking I know what I want, but afraid to go for it.  
Am I going the right way? 
If only I knew exactly what You wanted Lord.   

God You say touch nothing unclean.  
But how do you save the broken, give a home to the lost, a hand to the helpless?  
What can I do?  
You don’t intend for me to always remain stuck under their wings do you?  

You care for these lost sheep, 
You have a nearly unbelievable heart of compassion, 
I know it because that’s what you wrote about.  

Once I felt like I could hurt them to finality.  
But I don’t want to.  
I still love them, and want them to have their own lives.  
Even if I’ve chosen a different way of being to them.  

But Lord, You’re the true Unity, 
You’re the only One who can make a way for us 
to love one another without suffocating the other.  

I can, I can step out from under their wing.  
But I’m so damn afraid, what’s wrong with me.  
Comparing this to the feeling of stepping off a cliff.  

Will I regret?  
Will I crash at the bottom, or will I experience the flight before the refreshing touch of the water below?  
Only You know.  
Please lead me Lord, and lead him too.  

Remember that time when I literally did jump.  
Remembering I push my patients through their fears.  
So I had to challenge myself to jump off the cliff into the water below.  
Knowing it was safe. That You’d catch me in the water on the other end.  

So Lord, I’ll trust in Your hands, 
that are much greater than mine or anything I could possibly come up with.
No scheming could ever be greater than your ways and your thoughts.  

I know how they’ll respond if I jump into these dreams or decide to hold this hand.  
They’ll be angry.  They’ll fight with me till there’s no more energy left in either of us.  
But would they remain that way forever?  
Would it give them a heart attack? Would it break their heart?  Or would it be good for them?  

I don’t know Lord, I really don’t know.  
I hate this racism, that separates us.  
A literal gap between worlds.  
A conflict that appears to have no resolution.   

If only I could do all things in my life with a reassurance that You’re behind it all.  
With my spendings of time, energy & money. 
Could you back me up?  
How do I know?  

But I’ll trust in You.
  Forever, through eternity.  

Amen.