Last year, I wrote the reflection below, tinkering with ideas for a flash-fiction contest. I happened across it again yesterday. It’s a strange experience when your own writing strikes you to the heart; that’s when you know it must have been inspired by God. The reflection below did just that, reminding me that my spiritual journey is a continual returning to God, demanding conversion again and again. In the past several months, I feel He permitted me to drift a little and feel His absence—to remember how much I need His presence.
I am like that child standing in the middle of a fairground, tears streaming through the cotton candy stuck to my face, tall people trampling the grass around me, my head filled with the ferris wheel’s cheerful tune. Moments before, I was grinning, my hand in Daddy’s. But then, my heart leaping, I untangled our fingers and darted toward a booth hawking cheap stuffed animals. I am lost now. Alone. But more than this, I realize I was fooled by the world, and God will not hold me close if I push Him away.