Where I've Walked

The glow of the stage lights glisten across the fingertips raised high as my peers engage in worship. In the darkened sanctuary the serine mood calms my heart and my mind begins to surface. The melody the band so gracefully gives is enough to flutter my butterflies and move me in ways only music could. I am at peace. Looking around I see eyes closed and lips at a whisper, each word, a message in a bottle sent across the waves of eternity.
Teens all around, knelt to the floor, wiping tears from their repentance ridden faces, clenching tissues as if they were the hand of God. I am one of the few with a raised head an open eyes as everyone around appears to be floating in a realm above our own. Expressions of joy, sorrow, and peace cover their faces and cries of desperation fill my ears. The glowing lights, like heaven, create silhouettes like angels out of these people of faith. Hands upon hands and hands upon the sky, they reach. They reach with every fiber of their being for this idea of God, of something more.
Watching closer at the expressions and actions of the people, I start to understand each one’s walks in faith. I see where they are and where they are headed; it is written on their faces. The one that sobs on her knees is found in a place of failure or perhaps rejection before the one she loves. The one jumping for joy with arms extended toward the heavens has found confirmation or even victory in his God and can only think to praise. A group has gathered to create a dog-pile of hands upon another’s back as they sink into selfless prayer for a suffering sister. They are found in compassion, love and confidence in numbers but that is all that compels them. I spot a girl who was praying moments before watching me with concerned eyes. She is found in a judgmental spirit. She is the on who “knows” that those who do not find the light reach death and thinks that my wide opened eyes and blank expression paints me the color of hell for I do not know her God.
I know God. I know these people and places, for in their shoes, I’ve once stood, and the struggles of their heart are the same that plagued mine. The nostalgic light of their positions illuminate my soul for myself to see. The shadows sway and the angels sing and I am found in tears.

...

shiver down to bone but remember the feel of skin
for we are only naked to be covered again