Tonight I needed a walk. Immediately.
It was raining pretty steadily. Didn't matter. Ayda came with me. I knew the exercise would keep her warm.
We started on the regular route we always do. I kept my head down at first to keep my face from getting soaked, but then I realized I wasn't wearing any makeup, had nowhere else to be tonight, and the rain was coming straight down so it wouldn't get in my eyes. So I stared straight ahead and let the rain run down my forehead, nose and cheeks. Soon enough, my pants were soaked, my shoes were soaked, and my outer rain jacket was soaked. I probably looked like the unabomber with my hood covering my hair, my hands in my pockets and my lanky stomps through the rain, but I soon stopped caring.
And I started praying.
You are my prize.
I have already won.
There's nothing to achieve.
There's no one to become.
I fear no fate, for You are my fate.
Ayda didn't like the rain. She was getting paranoid about every little sound and even more terrified of car headlights than she already is. She kept whipping her head around and frantically looking at me.
"You're okay, love. You're okay as long as you stay with me."
And like most shepherding things I say to my dog, I could hear His voice say the same words to me.
I felt fearless.
I fear no darkness.
I started thinking about the hardest things I've been through and some of the hardest things I could possibly think of happening in the future.
I fear no darkness.
But what if--?
I fear no darkness.
We circled back to my house and I knew Ayda was done. I wasn't quite though. I let her into the house, gave her a nice towel-dry, and set off again for another lap.
The rain was softer, but I was already drenched to the core.
The sidewalk in front of me turned somewhere in the distance past the fog, but it felt like an endless straight line in front of me.
I have so many hopes and dreams.
I have so many moments I want in my future.
I have so many images of what my happiness would look like.
I walked past my favorite house in my neighborhood, the closest thing to a dream house I've come to find in Oregonian suburbs.
I have such a vision for my future.
Somehow, through the raindrops in my eyelashes and the ones streaming down my face and neck, I sensed I was looking Him in the eye. And all those little glimpses of all those little treasures I was thinking of began to fade away.
You are my moment.
You are my vision.
You are the beauty I ache for.
You are my goal. And You're already mine.
I was home by then.
And it was time.
