Out Run the Wind

Hey Everyone,

I have these vast reservoirs of sadness that I keep hidden in the deep recesses of my heart. It’s not like I built a place for them there or anything; it’s more like there were times when the sadness, the brokenness, the pain was so great that if it all washed over me at one time I would have drowned. So those sad waters find a spot that’s out of the way and every once in a while something will trigger the release valve and little of that sadness will drain off. I long for the day when those reservoirs are bone dry but it probably won’t be while I’m still vertical and breathing.

The words to a Pat Terry song called Out Run the Wind have been emptying the pond a little bit lately. It’s amazing to me that God gives some people the gift of finding the right words to penetrate a stranger’s heart. Or should I say that it scares me that there are so many of us have experienced pain in similar ways?

“Like a hundred mile an hour wind driving pine straw through a pole
You went straight through my soul
With your temper, your poetry and your blue jeans full of holes
You were something to behold
There was a mystery in you when you kissed me what else could I do?
Your wildness your recklessness didn’t matter to me then
I could still out run the wind
I held you like a rosary prayed you like a prayer
sacrificed everything and didn’t care
That mean streak down inside you was that cross I couldn’t bear
My heart’s the proof: the scars are there
God knows I tried to brave the rain that filled the storm clouds in your eyes.
When I said I’d go the distance things were so much different then
I could still out run the wind
I never dreamed how hard it’d be but loving you took such a toll on me
So Reckless so fearless God how I loved you then
when I could still out run the wind

So reckless so fearless so foolish in the end
Thinking I could hold you and out run the wind.”

When I think of the foolishness that filled my heart for the first 30 years of my life well, it’s a wonder that I’m still alive. My idols should have killed me by now but God is merciful or else he has a really sick sense of humor- some days I’m not sure which it is.

I’ve spent a lot of time with my grandchildren in the last month. I have one getting ready to graduate from high school and another that is getting ready to graduate to crawling with four more in the middle. The younger ones know the pain of hunger and maybe of wacking their head on the corner of a table. The oldest knows more pain, more intimately and probably has reservoirs of sadness already though I don’t know if he knows it yet or not. I had several reservoirs by the time I finished high school but I didn’t know it because they were so deep and I thought an idol would be enough to see me through. So I married her.

I was foolish to the 100th power. I live with the scars of that every day. Who I am is shaped by those scars and I wouldn’t trade who I am now, here in the present for anything in the world. But I wouldn’t want to be that young fool again for all the money in the universe. I don’t ever want to be or see that fool again.

I long for the day when I stop trying to out run the wind and just stand still and let the wind of the Spirit blow through my heart until every reservoir of sadness is evaporated.

Typing through salt water eyes,

Brad

PS. On a lighter note the Final Word’s season finale is available for viewing at: http://www.youtube.com/bradleyscotstephens