The rain starts with drops like sizzles and soon it is pounding like popping corn on the windshield. I clutch the steering wheel hard, shoulders hunched, wipers on full speed with two of my three girls nearly asleep in back.
We drive long for a much too-short visit with family in Central Oregon, and it is beautiful to be together, but only twenty-eight hours at the ranch house when all is said and done just is not enough.
The day before, the girls and I drove through early morning light — they eating bananas rolled in cereal that their papa made for them, me sipping from a travel mug he filled for me.
The sky was all shades of purple and miracle, the trees coral and ruby.
Our way home the next day is through a dark late afternoon. We pass Whispering Falls Campground, and the drops are a gentle whoosh. By the time we reach Niagara Park, it falls full hammering flood.
We drive for a long time under a canopy of thick fir trees, and Sici says from the backseat how dark it is and asks the time. We both can hardly believe it is only 3:30.
The rain keeps pummeling pavement and kicks up clouds sharp powder gray.
One morning this week, I told some friends about my late teens and early 20’s, where obsessive thinking was my torrential storm. I tried to fight my way out of the dark that none could see from my outside, and while I fought, I wrapped guilt, shame and burden around myself.
They made bad coverings and horrible weapons, left me shivering and cold.
Still, the rains pounded, unrelenting.
I tried to talk myself out of the thoughts that accused and called me a fraud, the ones that said I would leave deep wounds. I tried to be better and do better. I tried to pretend the darkness didn’t exist. But the pitch black sinkholes were everywhere — I knew that — and as soon as I avoided one, I’d drop into another.
So, I’d redouble my efforts to fight off the attack and the fall, and fail again. I was weary.
But in the middle of the nasty stage whispers and spittle-flying yells, a still, small voice cut through to the front.
The voice brought peace, rest and solid ground, and because it sounded so different than all the others, it got my attention.
I began to stop trying so hard to unravel the tormenting, began to slow at the effort-ing, began to outright refuse to plunge deeper into dark places to try to rescue myself — searching for explanations that would not come because the still, small said, I’ve got this.
This is how I spoke out the ugly dark to my someday husband, nearly shaking in fear that he would leave me, and how I held up the white flag and cried long for God to fight my battles, laying down the weapons I’d made myself.
The dark had tried chasing me into a hole, to the corners, crushing me under its heft, but it was no match for Light. So I spoke my fears out loud and released my grip on the fight and opened the door. WIDE.
Light streamed in, full flood.
I am driving under the canopy, and it is dark. The rain still pours, my windshield wipers do the back and forth. I feel my fingers cramping in their grasp around the wheel.
But what I can’t stop seeing through the rain is the color that just keeps coming, streaks and dots of light amidst the pitch.
Against the black, these school buses, these quaking aspen, these startling maples, these diamond signs, these dashed reflective lines — they are shining pure gold.
Piercing straight through the middle of the dark.
Connecting through the power of stories written, spoken and lived
Oh my godness. Powerful imagery! Incredible word choice!
Thank you for this gift.
(email coming.)
Beautiful Ashley….amazing, humble, sparkling, light… heartful sigh…
Blessed by your presence here, dear Kelly. Thank you.
So grateful to have been able to connect with you yesterday, Kim. I have been praying for you. Thank you for your encouraging words.
beautiful ash. so true. we can’t save ourselves. HE alone is the answer & has so much LOVe to flood on us.HE is the light that chases away the dark. sssssay…we were in sunriver last weekend. mama & us girls. thought of you & your mama as we passed black butte. had no idea you were there :) love u pal so much.
He is the light that chases away the dark…yes! We cannot save ourselves, though we sure try. Daily, actually, for me. I try stubbornly and clumsily, when, all the while, he offers his love and light so freely. What a gift when I stop to receive a portion of that.
Oh, Ashley. How I want to have a real-life conversation with you about…so much.
This absolute surrender is everything, I know this–it is the difference between hell & heaven. When I read these words: “the still, small said, I’ve got this.” my whole body went to tingles.
You have such a way with words–with life.
Thank you, beautiful one.
You are so right, Julia. Absolute surrender — the difference between hell and heaven. I have never seen it spoken in this way, but you are so right, my friend. Preach it. Thankful, beyond thankful for you and this life you have!
Ashley…first I’m stunned…by the sheer unrelenting awesome beauty of this writing of yours…by the exquisite evocative imagery…and then by the horror of the dark…and then again by the beauty of the Light. And the rain, the rain that muddies, the rain that washes clean, that reflects and obscures…just the All-ness of it Ashley. How could it be any more True than what you’ve said? I can’t help but cry. Such amazing Beauty…..!
I love you my dear girl!
I love all you said about the rain here, Mama. Beautiful. Thank you for your encouraging words to me and your great love, in all kinds of ways — understanding and appreciating the nuances. Blessing, you are.
Oh is the week the sisters gather and wrestle fear and anxiety to the mat. You go sister. This is a sacred echo in my heart. I know. I hear. Your words cut like a butter knife, dull-sharp through the places that need the blade of healing redemption. Oh, the more will come in an email to you. You bless…. for now, e and you are not alone.
We’ve got our singlets pulled tight, our headgear firmly fixed. It is on. Fear and anxiety are no match for these women in These Hands.
Just working on a project using the Beatitudes and was looking for a way to illustrate “blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” – I learned that “poor in spirit” is when a person realizes her utter helplessness and relies completely on God will she know the kingdom of heaven. Your picture words gave me a fine example! I love your words – I am such a visual learner and they always fill my mind with pictures!~
What a great definition for “poor in spirit,” Martha. Grateful that this imagery met you where you are today. Thank you for the gift of your presence here.
only when…
I think I needed this today, Ashley. I feel like I’m heading through dark’s middle, have been for awhile, and needed to hear those words, “I’ve got this.” And to see the flecks of gold through the rain and dark. You do have such a profound gift… and God uses it so beautifully through you.
In the dark, dear one, he’s got this. He’s got you. You are treasured, flecks of gold shining on your beautiful self.
“This is how I spoke out the ugly dark to my someday husband, nearly shaking in fear that he would leave me, and how I held up the white flag and cried long for God to fight my battles, laying down the weapons I’d made myself.”
All beauty, but this above, my favorite. Your writing is so genuine. <3
Thank you, friend.
One more… I am stunned by your gift… and I thank you for sharing with me… I am honored dear heart….blessed be and don’t ever stop Sweet Pea…
I loved your poetic prose.. your imagery was so brilliant, I felt I was in the passenger seat with you, Ashley. What a brilliant moment that must have been as a young woman. Life is so overwhelming sometimes, thankfully, we have help.. a beautiful, loving God.
Yes, it can be. I am thankful for the ability, though, to look back on this life and see all the ways I’ve had help, where my path has been illuminated. Thanks so much for your comment, Smidge.
I found you from Amber’s. Great post! I posted today about my struggle with depression as well and then I was tormented all day about it and almost took it down. You have encouraged me, especially regarding the blogging aspect of it all. Thank you!
Amber, thank you so much for commenting. I’m so glad you’ve come! I believe there is incredible power in telling our stories — both for us and for those who read and are able to identify in some way with our experience.
For me, so much of my anguish in anxiety and depression comes from believing I am alone in my experience.
You showed such courage in telling your story. May God keep you in your journey and continue to guide you as you write and walk out this life.
Your lament is palpable. You suffered quietly all those years, but now are free of this inner darkness. Your prose speaks of love and hope, forgiveness and understanding. Your words encourage and arm others similarly affected. Thank you!
Thank you, Papa, for your loving words. So glad the pain of those days is behind me. Pieces of it remain, but I have found so much healing through speaking the yuck out (confessing) and receiving the Light shining in and proclaiming it (praise). Grateful.
Your poetry (yes, poetry to me) reminds me of Mary Oliver’s, “Wild Geese.” (This is definitely not faint praise!!) She starts, “You do not have to be good…”
Like Oliver, you draw the reader into this world where vivid imagery and emotional complexity are arm in arm. For who doesn’t know the “nasty stage whispers” and the dark canopy of pummeling rain-thoughts? As we ponder the inner dark, you keep turning us over to nature’s wild embrace, its pelting rains, its fierce comforts. Then you walk us to an open door, where there is always a sliver of light. Even in this raucous dark-as-night storm.
Ashley, Shining and golden, this piece pierces straight through the middle of dark.
And you, in drawing it forth, are “announcing your place in the family of things.”
Wow, Carolyn. I am humbled by the comparison and by your comment. How I love what you say, “…walk us to an open door, where there is always a sliver of light.” That is it, isn’t it? For how we each need reminding that there IS a sliver of light — always. And how we need each other to help us find the way back Home.