Our writing prompt in my writer’s group was:
If someone from the future picked up your journal and read about today, what would they read?
This is what I wrote. My writer’s group said I should post it as it might encourage someone right now. I hope it does. ❤️
I went for a walk today.
Dew still clung to the tips of the trees. The mountains still stood just as tall as they were yesterday.
But the quiet of the pathway that I walk, the quiet…it has grown since all the people began hiding away.
I’ve never seen anything like this in my lifetime. The thing is though, no one has. Those who lived through the Depression, or the wars, they’ve all but gone and so the living are left wondering with very few to ask their questions.
I’ve never seen the whole world respond together like this. A rise and fall of fears and faith moving like the ocean across the globe. Like a boat coming to rock along each and every shore. Untethered and unknown. Only to move on to another shore yet we know not where its next destination might be.
Fear has been hovering waiting to drop its talons into each heart that listens too much to its voice. But God also has been speaking and His voice is the one that comforts and silences all the questions for me.
There is so much chatter about what this is, why it’s happening, and yet there is a silence that allows humanity to speak and show itself for what it is. There is evil. There is good. And they show up, side by side, fighting for each of our attentions. One destroying and terrifying, the other truthfully drawing people to something that will stay in their hearts long after this virus has gone with gentle whispers but a strength unmatched.
I was afraid, and it still pokes at the edges of my mind, but I also am brave and have seen the streets empty and carried groceries for those who live near me and have lead those in my care, even though right now it seems there is nowhere we are going.
But we are going somewhere in every little thing we do and say. And everyone is choosing right this very moment where they will end up. Not life or death, that is out of our hands no matter what we do, although we should do whatever it is we can, for ourselves and others. That is loving each other.
God help us. Help each of us to continue to be someone who takes people somewhere, somewhere beautiful.
Beauty can grow in the most difficult of places and the Lord tends to do His most intimate work there. Let us be there too.
I took a deep breath today and reached for a drop of dew on the trees and touched the world to remind me of how much is yet to be known.
Love is still here, speaking in the quiet.
