AN INVISIBLE POWER

Outside running tonight I ran into the wind on the first stretch and on the homestretch, it was behind me.  There was a bit of predictability in it.  I knew if I ran into the wind heading west, when I returned for the jaunt home eastward, the wind would push me.  But there was, despite all my logic and planning with the wind - this thing that really cannot be held in jar, placed in a corner or really even seen - a bit of ebb and flow that I could not anticipate.  Though I knew the direction of the wind, I could not guess its rise and fall - the gusts or lulls - what makes wind, wind.  Life is a bit like that.  We try to know the direction, be sensible, plan but there is part of it that is not controllable.  To get where we might need to go we need to go with the wind - let go and experience the gusts and lulls, to trust this wind we cannot see or hold.  My medical doctor has a sailboat.  This week I asked him about sailing once the weather warms up.  He responded wryly, "Well, I don't need warmth, only wind."   I have learned some things about the wind this past year.  I continue to learn what it is to run into it, fighting, and I am still learning what power there is in letting the wind take me.  I was talking with a friend of mine today.  Conversation lent itself to how love changes us, drives us differently.   I shared with him things about my personality that I can't believe I do now - things that just have not defined me all my life.  He responded, "Well, love is a powerful thing."  Love is a powerful thing.  Both true, deep and rich human love, and the love God truly has for us.  Wind can take us somewhere, if we let it.  It cannot always be seen or defined easily, but its effects are felt.