I spin

“I don’t know if you’ve ever felt like that. That you wanted to sleep for a thousand years. Or just not exist. Or just not be aware that you do exist. Or something like that. I think wanting that is very morbid, but I want it when I get like this. That’s why I’m trying not to think. I just want it all to stop spinning.” -Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower 

As a kid, I loved to spin wildly until I fell.  

We all have tried this: arms outstretched in opposite directions, while the drunkenness of gravity overtakes the body.  I often spun when I was bored or needed a rush…I’m familiar with spinning. As I've grown older, I still spin wildly until I fall. 

I've danced my way around direct answers. 

I've pivoted away from difficult realities. 

I've whirled past anything sincere, coiling tightly around immediate fulfillment.  

I spin fervently in circles in search of my own Shalom. 

Today is a day where I remember the spin.  Each downward spiral revisits my contemplation, making me question my existence.  Darkness does his job when he refines lies until they resemble truth- a true swindler of all things good. Yet as I spin, I can see a figure approach me.  Kind eyes and broken body confront me in the wake of my vertigo. He whispers “Come to me, and I will give you rest.”  My spinning slowly eases and my heart goes quiet when I gaze upon that figure in the distance. For without Him the world is a hopeless circuit of darkness, spinning wildly until it falls.  In Him, though, there is a love more faithful than the morning; a love that shows up in the remnants of each day.  It's a love that weaves hope into this broken world that spins off kilter…this broken world that spins just like me.