Stained

Sitting in chapel. Chaplain Messner's voice echoes from all the seemingly random angles of the tan brick walls. A message can sift out of all the chaos, but I cannot focus. Now used to living, thinking, and fellowshipping with thirty or less people, I feel lost in this thousand-some. Too big of a space, too many individual circumstances. I have to escape somewhere quiet, even if ti's only my mind. Even the usually comforting lines of a blank page are shattered by slivers of sharp, fragmented shade made with the pen, my hand, and a multitude of lights in all directions. The stressful angles meld, separate, and shift as I form these letters.

Too much.

Too much...

...so I look to the stained glass windows above. Still hectic, but some aspect of it is peaceful. So many sharp edges and broken pieces went into its creation. I can hear the colors cracking and screeching under the artist's glass cutters. Now they hang in space speaking silently of the gospel; simply waiting. No forcing themselves on me. No demands for attention. So I look.

Christ's grueling death, the new Eden, promises of hope. Heavensickness takes my gut. Suicide scenes flash through my head, little arms wrap around my neck, and LeeRoy takes the ministry box for me, wanting to be trusted.

Then words appear from the chaos of in the far edges.

"ASK OF ME AND I SHALL GIVE THEE THE NATION."

Such little text in a vast space...a blatant promise of what I yearn for. I can yearn because He will fulfill. He will overflow His word. He goes beyond.

He is.