Chelan

In the middle of the fight last night, I felt like I was spiritually suffocating in the darkness of the room. 

I needed fresh air and went out front and sat on the concrete, bare feet on the cold grass. 

I focused on the sensations I felt. I breathed the air in deeply. I looked up with my eyes and found in the sky above the house across the street, a cloud formation that was lit up as if it were taken from the day sky and placed in the night. 

It looked like a large, soaring bird with long, flowing, stretched out wings.

There were no other clouds in the sky. I looked. I could not figure out what made it bright. It was too far past sunset to reflect the sun or atmospheric rays. I’m sure there is some meteorological explanation, but in the moment, I didn’t want to know one.  I wanted to know – I needed to know – it was there like that, for me.

So I sat, trying desperately to slow my breath, feeling the chill of the blades under my feet, and looking up – with thoughts still too anxious to contend with tears.

I silently asked, “What does it mean?”

And I heard a silent, “Peace.  Power.”

It seemed as if these two words did not go together. I wondered if I heard right. Or if I just conjured up in my own grasping mind what I thought the bird represented.

Within the hour, because three people we knew were praying passionately with faith, and because our God is merciful to lean down low and listen, breakthrough came. With it, words like a salve. Touch of tangible love. Forgiveness requested and received.

And rest.

These will be my weapons in this next season:

“Peace. Power.”