what even is the kingdom?



Out on the beach in the early morning, clouds still covering the sky overhead, mist still clearing among the hills behind me, I walked. Slowly and silently. Letting the pounding of the crashing waves be my thoughts, my breath, my heartbeat. 



I didn’t quite know what had pulled me out of bed in the darkness of early morning or what had caused me to make the journey to the ocean as the sun rose. Perhaps to be near something else that was wild and uncontrollable and chaotic, but offered the hope of peace. Perhaps to gaze out into the vast unknown and let the horizon reassure me that there is more than I can see. 



Perhaps I came because the ocean is the place that invites the turmoil of bitter questions at a great Unknown. It is the materialization of paradox - danger and beauty, life and death, storm and calm, unmoving and unpredictable, simple and utterly complex. The expanse dwarfs me and my questions and isn’t threatened. I am just a tiny, tiny girl who is ankle-deep; what harm can I do?



And so I walked. Just walked. 



And then I stopped, and turned outward. 



I didn’t ask for him to come, I didn’t want to force him, but there he stood beside me. Both of us gazing across the waters like we’ve done so many times. He seemed calm, as always, but my mind raced and tumbled with the tumult of fears, doubts, accusations, and questions. I didn’t dare make eye contact, waves of sorrow and anger crashing one upon another in my soul. I didn’t dare ask for explanations, tired and afraid of disappointment. I didn’t dare speak at all at first, wrapped up in shame. Ashamed that I was not the warrior of unwavering faith I had wanted to be for him. Ashamed that I was not the apostle he’d called me to be. Ashamed that I was stuck here, sunk into the wet sand of confusion and pain. Ashamed over both my ignorance and my desperation to understand.



Somehow my question surfaced from the foaming waters. Everything had seemed clear before, but now my vision was so murky that I wondered if hope existed, if all of this was going anywhere, if I was following anything more than an idea. 



“What even is the kingdom?”



 I winced as I asked it, feeling a deep pain in my gut - the vulnerable pain of breaking a long silence and fearing only more silence in return. I still only saw him in my peripheral vision as we stared into the waves.



He answered in that beautifully familiar voice.



“The kingdom,” he said, “is like a seed - ” as he said it he reached his hand and touched me gently above my navel with just one finger - “that grows into the largest of trees, and the birds come and make nests in its branches.” 



And that was all. 



Not a word of it was new. 



But the touch - in that touch he gave me a vision of something. The kingdom like a seed sown in the hungry soil of my stomach aching for fruition. The kingdom like a seed planted in my womb where it grows and is born into life.  The kingdom like a seed embedded in the impulses of my gut that feel contrary to God but perhaps come from the places of deepest union with him. 



In that touch I caught a tiny glimpse of the kingdom rooted in me, branches growing to hold all the fluttering heartaches, circumstances, loved ones, and worries, and lay them safely to rest. 



And in that touch I felt the reassurance I hadn’t dared seek: that I was exactly who he wanted, and exactly where he wanted; that I wasn’t falling behind or slowing him down; that my wandering was still my following; that he was calling me again; that he had been growing the kingdom in me all along. 



And so I continued again down the beach as the waves still crashed. Continued with my unanswered questions, continued with my sorrows and angers, continued with my uncertainties. But most of all, I just continued. 






written July 30, 2019


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