journal prompt 2 // a spiritual awakening

Monday, July 23, 2012

Welcome back to the Journal Prompt Link-up! This week we'd like to hear about:

a spiritual awakening
Link up with your own down below.
Harley & Jane
--------------------------- 
Jane
My faith, like many others I think, goes through lulls. It ebbs and flows, comes and goes. Usually the process is gradual enough that I only notice the extremes.

One night I felt especially low as I drove back to Utah from home in the claustrophobic darkness.The hour was late and I was alone and lonely. The song of my heart found voice to the sky in my empty car. I told Him of my sorrow and despair and how I felt trapped in a starless hole. I told Him I was stumbling, tripping, under the weight upon me and that I felt empty.

And I wept.

The prayer lasted for maybe ten miles. Twenty?

A few hours later I passed through Salt Lake, my lids wilting from the tears and fatigue. The Dr. Pepper and trail mix keeping me company were proving ineffective, so I switched between the radio, my book on CD, rolling down the windows, and blasting the AC to keep myself alert. At one point I realized I was surrounded by semi trucks, so I sat up a little straighter and forced my head to clear. I wasn't sitting straight enough though, because I didn't see the headlights in my rear view mirror. 

From the impact I thought it was a semi. My car shot forward and started to spin across the freeway. Afraid I would roll by braking or steering, I took my hands off the wheel and my foot away from the pedals, but the spinning continued and I seemed only to gain speed.


A cloud of pink dust surrounded my car from the moment he struck me, and it appeared so dense I could not see more than a few feet ahead. Ergo, to this moment I do not know what else happened around me in the few seconds I slid across three freeway lanes.

My hands found the wheel once more and my foot the pedal, and I pressed down hard. The 10 foot cement median wall stopped my car with the sickening, wrong sound of folding metal.

The pink dust cleared.

Smoke rose from under the hood, and the back of my car was jutting into the carpool lane. I was panting and my body shook, either from cold or adrenaline. Or both. As I instinctively reached for my cellphone, which was remarkably still on the seat next to me, I remembered. Not two hours before had I wept to the heavens, brokenhearted, about feeling abandoned. I begged for acknowledgement and comfort. Peace.

And there I sat, unscathed and protected, wholly encircled by something more than pink dust.

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Harley
A spiritual awakening.
Talk about a daunting journaling topic. I have been thinking about this for a week and I've struggled to put pen to paper on this topic.

If I am being honest I have never really had one of those BOOM moments, when everything clicked and I was suddenly sure. But maybe that is just a way of saying I don't try hard enough.

 However, I do know that in very small specific moments I find the existence of God completely undeniable.

A new mother holding her baby for the first time.
Standing on the beach in Italy looking out over the sea.
Marrying my husband.
Driving over the rocky mountains.
Fireflies.

It is those things. Those really small things that keep me spiritually alive.

In 2010 I was on a backpacking trip in Italy. We were in Cinque Terra. The scenery was unbelievable. The things people write about in fairy tales. I had my blue iPod and a playlist made by my friend Jana. The Passion Pit manners cd was on repeat.

It was standing in the sand, looking over the clear blue water, listening to music when I felt like I wasn't alone. That someone cared and they wanted me to be happy.
I was awake. 
I was alive.
And I was going to live that way for the rest of my life. 

3 comments:

  1. Sorry to post two entries! I just have had so many eye opening experiences this past year that I felt I needed to share two of them :) Love your blog!

    sydneysaysthankyou.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. Kayla, that is beautifully written.

    ReplyDelete