First gleam of dawn

Coming home from a powerful service feels like being the birthday host staring at presents and leftover party food after the last Goodbye. The first wave that hits is the awareness of being alone and the next wave is the realization of the need to bring evocated emotions and feelings into decisions and actions or else the impact lasts only for two hours.

To Mk’s question on “how long are you going to appear offline?” on late Thursday night, I didn’t have an answer. I didn’t ask if she was referring to real life or virtual life but I said I don’t know. When one is vulnerable, one is afraid of “yes”, “no”s and definite replies. I still show up where I have to. I’m at work early every morning. I go for my weekly visitations talking to the children as if my skies are always blue. I attend my writing workshops and make the usual obligatory small talk. On Wednesday, we had a dialogue session with the Permanent Secretary and I looked bright and fresh in my starched collared shirt. I am good at playing the roles I have to play, I keep showing up everywhere. It may not be a spring, but it isn’t a limp either, I just keep walking.

But my walk isn’t progressive. I am not walking nearer any destination, I am simply walking and then retreating and regretting. I am hesitant to meet people, I am tired of being brave and more comfortable being left alone. When I’m alone, I think about reversing time, undoing things that have been done, retracting emotions and energy that has been invested, editing the wrongs to rights. This is my winter: cold, gloomy, not conducive for growth a time of testing.

And Pastor Tan said, “With every winter comes spring.” That was a comforting knowledge that I already knew and I waited for what he was going to say next. I looked at him on stage, eyes of deep concentration and a sincerity to translate every thought into the most precise words. He paused and said, “God doesn’t waste any experience.”

God draws us close to Him, and cleanses us.

“As the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish,
so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater”

Isaiah 55:10

If I could take home just a single sentence last night, that’d be the one I'd be bringing back.