You were made for mighty things.

You.

Yes, you with your fingers curled around the computer mouse. Your sleepy eyes hooked to the glow of the screen.

You, with the tired limbs & the half-faking-it kind of smile that’s stayed on your face since lunchtime. You, who might scroll through your newsfeed one last time tonight before giving it up and going to bed. Trying again for something better in the morning.

You were made for mighty things.

& I cannot go a single step more without you knowing that true. Not a step. Not a hop. Not a shuffle or a sashay more without you knowing that  your bones & every ounce of you exist for a reason much greater than this. Much greater than the fog. Than the pricks. Than the pains. Much greater than this moment that you already feel has closed up & in & all around you.

Darkness, darkness, you’ve felt it creeping in. You’ve wrapped yourself in blankets. Curled up in doubts. Listened to the hollow of the night and wondered what you’re really here for. You’ve started prayers but you don’t know to whom. The Whole of it feels awkward. The God feels distant. You swear He cannot hear you. & even if He can, you’ve been unforgiveable for quite the while.

You’ve wondered if you matter. If this hurt will ever go away. If ever, oh, ever the people would remember you if it came time to wear black tomorrow & bury your body deep in the ground.

Darling, darling, hear me good: The dark has stars that poke through the sky and the light, the light that pours on through, is thicker than you know.

Thick like the wool socks you fold over snow boots. Thick like the trunk of the tree in the yard in the back where the tire swing used to swoop & swoop– your hands gripping the rope; your laughter floating up to the leaves.

You were made for mighty things.

Though you swear  you don’t know the starting point just yet. You feel swallowed in just the thought of beginning.

Of trying. Of wandering out beyond the lines of the Things You’ve Known. The Things You’ve Known that you know have become the Things You Know Don’t Fit You Anymore & Don’t Fill You Any Longer & Don’t Quite Play Music Like the Days of the Jewelry Box No More, No More.  

You feel swallowed, so swallowed, just by finding the shred or the starting line or the first little note in the symphony entitled, “How to tell anyone, just anyone at all, that you want to have meant something at the end of all this.” That you’ve wanted to be infinite for pockets of time. That you’ve wondered if there might still be time for you to step out and be something mighty in this world– you’ve done your wrong. You’ve hurt the others. You’ve thought out loud the lie you thought was always true: “I won’t be used for anything good, anything mighty, in the big ol’ world. Maybe her and maybe him but not me. Not me.”

There’s a whisper in the folds tonight,”You were made for mighty things.”

& so it is time to start. Not time to argue.  Not time to groan or doubt or fear. Not time to make excuses. Not time to shrink away. You say you’ve got tomorrow but don’t you know how fierce and fiesty a thing that Time be?

Time. She spits. She sputters. She flips out her hair and don’t guarantee no one a single thing. Not a measuring cup full. Not a week on the calendar. Nothing, nothing.  She only warns you– with her pointed finger in the air– to take the Today & the Tomorrow if she grants it. Take the Tomorrow if Time gonna bless your knees with it in the morning.

No time to reason. No time to know why. Only Time & the small of her back & the truth that ticks like the clock on the wall: As long as you are standing here, two feet on the ground, you’ve got the graces of a New Beginning in your palms. You can close the doors. You can clean out the closets. You can say goodbye. You can let it go.

You can uncover newness. You can climb a new rope. You can stare up at the sky. You can find that God. You can look in the mirror & you can partner with the one looking back. You can decide that you aren’t a thing with just fingers & toes– flawed & fleshy & unfit for unfolding plans.  But that you are a lighthouse. A lantern. A luminari. A flicker of hope. You are the bright spot in the day of someone else.

You are more powerful than you’ve called yourself to be. You are more worthy than you’ve ever claimed to be. But ain’t no one gonna grant you that if your hands aren’t open and your slate isn’t cleared and you can’t find a way to say– to the moon & the stars & the fireflies in the trees tonight— that you’ve grown tired of your Yesterdays & the smallness of it all &  you’ve decided to shift & shake your Tomorrows for as long as you have them. Shift & shake & give them away to the Someones scattered in the world that were made to see light pouring straight of you. You, yes, you.  

You were made for mighty things.

…

you make beautiful things, you make beautiful things out the dust. 

you make beautiful things, you make beautiful things out of us.