From Dust to Dust

“The years go by like stones under rushing water.  We only know when it’s gone.”

-NEEDTOBREATHE

“Weep not for me, for in Glory I wait for thee.”

-Anonymous

I took a God walk today.  I grabbed my Bible, threw on some comfy clothes and exited through the back of the dorm.  I had a feeling I knew where I was going, I’d been there once before (not very long, and totally a different story) so I wanted to go back again.

I’m not sure why I was instinctively driven there.  Maybe because I knew it would be quiet and because I knew I would be alone.  I knew that the wind would be my only companion, and God if I could somehow find him.

I know that it seems silly that I would have to go find God.  He’s omnipotent, but it feels like I’m actually setting aside time for him when I talk a walk and plan on meeting him somewhere, like I would meet a friend at a coffee shop on a summer day. 

Except today was no summer day, and I was sitting among graves. 

Cemeteries give many people the heebie-jeebies but I find that it’s a place where I can sit and think among a hundred people who already understand what happens after death.  I know what I’ve been taught, but I can’t help wondering about the validity of it.  All I know right now is that when I have God, I have peace.  When my emotions are raging he is what settles me and puts me back on track.

That’s why I went there.  So I could talk to God among a group of people who already know the truth.  It’s a strange way to be comforted, I know.

I picked my way through the gravestones and among the grass while listening to trees that sounded like a creaky porch swing as they blew in the wind.  A few loose leaves were tripping on the ground and rustling in the grass.  Birds were singing and the wind was brushing against my back, picking my hair up from its warm place against my neck and touching my face, cooling my nose. 

I could finally think.  And there were so many things to think about.  My Bible remained tucked under my arm as I continued to walk and take in my surroundings, breathing in the Seattle winter air.

I sang Be Thou My Vision quietly to myself and found a place to sit.  I opened my Bible to Psalm 23, one of my favorite Psalms when I was young and it remains so.  “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.  He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul.”

He restores my soul.  Sometimes I need to take time to breathe and remember where my breath comes from.  He is the one that has the power to take it or leave it.  He is the one that has the power to truly love and heal me.  I continued to read through the Psalms, since they were the prayers that I couldn’t seem to find and put into my own words. 

I turned through Psalms mindlessly, occasionally watched at the wind flipped pages, not in the mood to stop it from doing so.  Then I read Psalm 90:3-6. 

You turn men back to dust,

saying, “Return to dust, O sons of men.”

For a thousands years in your sight

are like a day that has just gone by,

or like a watch in the night.

You sweep men away in the sleep of death;

they are like the new grass of the morning—

though in the morning it springs up new,

by evening it is dry and withered. 

That verse directly correlated with the song I had been listening to by NEEDTOBREATHE.  These days will soon be over, I will be gone before I know it.  I will be just one more among these graves.  Yet while I’m alive, I’m extremely blessed.  I’ve been given the power to love. 

It turns out the cemetery was exactly what I needed.

Time to think,

Reflect,

and let myself come full circle once again.