By Lucy Tian '22
Down the road is a pumpkin patch. Past the patch is a forest. The forest melts into a desert. The desert melts under the sun. The sun sets under a tree. The stars spin and in three breaths a sunrise. It brings a golden crown, shimmering and strumming glory glory hallelujah.
It feels like home. It feels like hope. It feels like peace laid tenderly on the heart, a crown perched lightly on the brow. An infinite Love with gentle radiance, a redeemed child named co-heir. It feels as if the desert itself shakes and resonates glory glory hallelujah.
Dunes shift and roads change. Sands give way to damp dirt. The horizon is painted in green. The ground brings forth fruit. The ground brings forth thorns. Thorns draw up blood like berries. Tree roots rise up from the ground like scars. These are the days of pain and healing and rejoicing glory glory hallelujah.
This is the order of things. Thorn beats fruit. Fruit beats hunger. Hunger fuels fire, and fire overcomes thorns. Plunge the ground into fire. Refine it through the flames consuming, the waters rising, burning and washing and burning and washing and burning and renewing with glory glory hallelujah.
For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ
you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake,
engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had and now hear that I still have.
(Philippians 1:29-30 NIV)
Illustration by Eunae Ko '23