Worship

Today is a new day, as was yesterday. The difference was, yesterday I just didn't see it. Renewed life is a strange thing. Sometimes it doesn't seem like it's really alive, flourishing, and rejoicing. Sometimes the heart just waits quietly, and in those times the temptation to grasp loneliness is often fierce. We don't always feel joy, but I am convinced that it is always within us, because the one who made joy is within us. We just don't always choose to recognize it.
Is it something we can choose? I don't know...
Some days I just see something beautiful or read inspired words, and they touch my heart and remind me who my God really is. Worship is like a fire within my heart; it just takes the right spark to ignite it. But other times my heart feels grey, not like a stormy day, but like a canvas that hasn't been painted. I think I don't know what's going to happen, or what tomorrow will look like, or maybe I do and I just doesn't sound exciting, so I feel grey and I just stare at it. But there is a marvelous landscape behind the grey canvass, and I could look at it, I could even paint it, but I just sit there...staring...
I want every day to be a sunset day, a dance with my Dad day, a falling in love day, but my days are not all alike. Are some days meant for weathering the storm? Or are those the days that I just choose to stare at my grey canvas and refuse to watch the beauty surrounding me? I wish I knew...
I wish that tomorrow could be different just because I said so. But I really don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. What if I see the beauty, but I just don't feel inspired. I don't know if I know how to choose to worship anyway. I want to learn how to worship, to turn my heart to the Lord, even if I am not inspired by His beauty. I think that's what true worship is: choosing to fall to my knees even when I see only grey. Maybe if I did that more, I would have more falling in love days. Then true worship could become a way of life. That's what frustrates me the most about my humanity, the fact that sometimes even in all of His splendor, my eyes just can't see.

Material For Sacrifice

The feelings in my heart change each day
but my striving to find what fills, what satisfies, never changes.
It's never enough that I walk away, feeling the ache in my heart
Holding tight to that ache, hoping it will satisfy.

I hold out my empty hands, hoping to receive consolation
but they are not empty, they hold my heart,
and I know I must offer it back to You.

Lovingly, you look down at my palms and whisper,
"I will not fill them, for they are already full
of material for sacrifice."
Lay this, your heart, at my feet.

So I lay it down as my tears wash it clean,
but before my heart can even touch the alter,
Your hands meet mine and receive the sacrifice.
The hands that suffered so much protect my heart today.

And tomorrow, my hands are full again,
of material for sacrifice.