A Letter of Thanks from the Hillside

I find myself seated on the hillside.  Waiting.  Watching.  Participating with the serenity that is around me.  I take in a deep breath.  The air is full of so much more than just oxygen.  There is pure, undiluted life filling my lungs and clearing the fog in my mind.  I appreciate the hillside so much more after having lived in the pollution down below.  How sweet are the banks of the still waters after the barren wasteland!  My thirsty soul drinks in deeply as if tasting water for the very first time.  Bliss!  The old wounds that have been festering and infecting my whole being are slowly mending.  My sick heart begins to heal as I eat the fruit off the tree of life - hope restored, dreams renewed.

Here on the hillside I can see far into the distance.  As the dusk settles, the twinkling lights of the city down below begin to wake up.  There is a sense of something familiar, like being reminded of something you can't fully remember but the feeling it elicited.  I'm able to look back, back on all that was, the path that I walked for so many long days.  I can still taste the dust from the road, still feel the sun beating on my neck, feel the muscles in my legs sore from long and wearisome days.  But from up here I get to see the road in its entirety.  I see where the path started.  I see where it led.  Many would find pleasure and pride in completing the journey.  But self-accomplishment is far from my heart or mind.  Humility gets caught in my throat as I try to open my mouth and speak.  Gratitude gathers in the corners of my eyes and spills over.  I know all too well that I could still be wandering down there in a futile pursuit of self-effort.

How is it that life is so much more of a question than it is an answer?  And the more you seek for answers, the more questions you run into.  It turns into this endless goose-chase for something concrete that may not even exist.  That is when the despair, the panic and the disillusionment crashes in.  They make for terrible traveling companions, but at least they are committed to you.  At some point you must come into the realization that the destination of "answered questions" is not fact but fiction.  There is no arrival.  There is no happy ending to such a vain quest.

So is all hopeless?  Why do we even set out on this road of life?  

His name is Jesus.  He is the road on which we journey, the map that leads us on the way, the compass that sets our hearts on course.  He is the answer to every question, the ultimate reality of truth.  And He is the destination, the reason we are on this journey, the source and the definition of life.  (John 14:6)  When did we lose our First Love?  When did entitlement rob our affections?   When did we allow our rights to become more important than our relationship?  The right to know, the right to understand, the right to be understood, the right to have our lives all put together.  When did the main thing stop being the main thing?

But here I sit on the hillside.  I’m not sure how I even made it up here.  No, wait... I see it now.  I did finally collapse in the middle of my wasteland.  I couldn’t, I just couldn’t exist that way any longer.  With my eyes half swollen shut and my throat completely parched, I chocked out, “I give up!  I give up trying to find my way out of this endless wilderness.  I give up trying to climb out of this cavity in the ground.  I am here.  However long it takes, God I am here.  I will let YOU lead me out of the desert.”  As my tired head fell back down on my arm I suddenly felt someone’s shoulder lift me by my middle.  Nothing more than a dead weight, all I could do was surrender to this unexpected rescue.  Even now I only remember as though it were a hallucination, my consciousness being so fragile at the time.  He carried me up to the hillside.  In the middle of that empty, barren wasteland I had unknowingly collapsed right at the base of mountain.  And that’s where he found me.

By no means did he ever leave me, not at any one point.  Even on the loneliest bend in the road he was there in step with me, chatting in a lighthearted manner, unhurried, unconcerned about my current situation.  He never over spiritualized a thing.  He was just a friend.  And he became a very dear friend out on that dusty road.  And now I get to enjoy the hillside with my dear friend.  I get to enjoy this place of rest, this harbor for my soul, knowing full well that I do not have myself to thank.  It’s my friend who I get to thank.

Here in this place I have found my weary heart beginning to heal.  He has kissed every scar, rubbed balm on all the infected wounds.  He has reminded me of who I am; in all my weaknesses and brokenness I am still the one he chooses.  He has stripped me of those filthy rags that clung to my flesh, the rags of ambition, entitlement, offense, disillusionment.  He has unlocked those deep places in my heart where I store the things I love, the things that make me come alive, the things that make me me.  And He has painted rainbows in my sky, hopes that have materialized into dreams being realized.

Thank you my dear friend.  Thank you my one true love.  All I know to do in response is tell you thank you.