The Song

It's been a long while since my heart could soar, came her thoughts.

Days, draining by with the straining weight of obligation, staggered her soul. She reached out her hand to grasp the plow, to grasp the hoe, but they bandied to her blisters and weary callouses. The sun was not a warm comfort but an angry, glaring companion. The wind was not a tender caress but a whipping shout. When could her heart ever rise above and circle about?

It is amazing what power can come through a song. The softest, lilting refrain can undo the bars and locks of the darkest cage. And here came the refrain, the one that broke the straining, burning weariness:

Never, dear soul, were you fashioned to wear the ball and chain. Never, little moving wind, were you meant to be tracked and charted, captured or defined. You are like the sea foam spraying up from no-one-knows-where; tossing up your lovely, silver hair from the farthest reaches of the deep to the shallows beyond, where man may see. You take from the store of your shimmering heart to bring food to the lips of the dying. Indeed, this is the mystery: none know where you get this giving from. But I will tell you the secret: it is borne from the Kingdom of Love.

You are like water, which man cannot grasp in his hand. If he reaches for it, it is beyond him. So also it is beyond a man to call you what you are, for you are something new, emerging from My heart. You are the little moving wind, which no one can fit into a mould to shape according to his design. No, for You are Mine.

So now, My little heart: fly.

Written by Samantha Lindholm
May 20, 2014

Shonah's Garden

The winds are running like water through the leaves, the translucent leaves
Of many emerald trees.
Shonah sits in the Garden where the depths Your heart move through her mind
Like water over stones in a singing brook.
There in the counsel of kings, Your song the nations shook.

May 11, 2014
By Samantha Lindholm

Inspired as the overflow of my novel-in-progress.

The Breath of Your Mouth

I am finding new life in this passing sound.
Your kind whispers stir and animate this tired, little flame -
Feeding my soul unto bright and fragrant burning.
I flicker and wake 'neath the breath of Your mouth.

By Samantha Lindholm
April 29, 2014

[April 22]

Color my days with Your words, Great Author.

Rest (But Not Yet)

It isn't come yet.
The buildings are cast in auburn light.
The heart beats still wildly, the papers
Are still piling.
But sunset foretells rest -
Even though it isn't come yet.

It isn't come yet,
But the springtime sweet on my tongue
Is taste enough to provoke me on,
Onward until the papers are gone.
The calendar foretells sweet rest -
Even though it isn't come yet.

It isn't come yet,
But I will repose with You.
Dearest heart-friend, I feel like I've been away long
And long at work.
To sit with you in shade and rest the evening,
To revel in the gold of stars and the balm of summer storms.
You assure me that there will be rest -
Even though it isn't come yet.

Written by Samantha Lindholm
April 8, 2014

Weak Reachings

Words are too small to package the things that You put in the human heart. Words are weak reachings when their task is to encompass the whole of Your meaning.

The Waiting Place

The waiting place, they say, is a waste of time;
A place where the unwitting and hopeless twiddle their thumbs.
The waiting place, they've told me, is an empty room
Where ticking clocks oppress the soul and the sunk sinks low.

I came into this waiting place today, looking for white walls
And an infinitude of sterile, blue chairs.

But when my feet landed in the waiting place,
I looked down at a bed of waiting flowers.
Waiting lilies and dazzling, wild blossoms fed the air
With a fragrance that beckoned me to linger.
When I looked upon the waiting place,
There was nothing stagnant or sterile about it.
The clocks were erased; wending waters bustled all about.
The waiting place was vaulted by great trees,
Waiting trees that had waited a hundred years to meet the sky.
Their branches were home to nestling, singing birds
And the affectionate movings of the wind.

When I came to the waiting place,
Birdsong and sweetness emptied my heart of all of its hurry.
The waiting place is only a prison to the soul on the run.
The waiting place binds us up and settles us down,
Demanding us to fall back into that chasing peace,
The peace that follows us even when we busily draw away from it.

The waiting place settles me into the seat of the Old Garden,
Where the Beloved of Creation, scarred hands and all,
Comes to walk when the day cools.

Written by Samantha Lindholm
February 21, 2014