Cedar Wind

There was a time when I lived like the forest before dawn—still, shadowed, cold with memory. I was not just walking in the dark; I was it. Not because I wanted to be, but because I had been carved from it—shaped by harm, silence, and the buried cries of those who came before me. I carried their wounds like stones in my chest, unspoken names of those who vanished, were silenced, or endured. My roots were tangled in a soil that knew both medicine and mourning. “You were once darkness…” Ephesians 5:8 said. I read that, and I wept—not just for the truth of it, but because someone had finally named the place I came from.

And yet, something sacred stirred in that wilderness. Jehovah did not leave me buried in the night. He is the One who breathes on dry bones, the One who saw Hagar in the desert and heard Abel’s blood cry out from the earth. He saw me too. Isaiah 58:11 came like spring rain: “Jehovah will guide you constantly and satisfy you... you will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.” In time, I became less afraid of the light. It started in small ways—birdsong before morning, fireflies blinking their tiny hallelujahs, the smell of sweetgrass when I burned it in prayer. It was not loud, not grand, but it was constant. His light crept in like dawn through pine needles.

I began to live like one reclaimed. No longer a remnant of what was done to me, I became the breath of what could be. I was told by this world to keep my head down, to be ashamed of the red earth in my veins, of the stories etched into my bones. But Jehovah told me otherwise. He said, “You are precious in my eyes” (Isaiah 43:4). He reminded me that even in a world that tried to erase my people, my body, my voice—He remembered. And His memory is the kind that heals, not torments. I began to walk barefoot again, trusting the land that raised me, grounding in its medicine. I laid down the names of my pain like offerings beneath cedar trees.

And in return, I picked up light. Not the blinding kind, but the soft steady glow that comes from knowing who walks beside me. “Now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.” I do. I walk as light—not perfect, but sacred. Not unscarred, but full of praise. The light I carry is not always easy. It shows me the broken places of others too, and sometimes that ache is heavy. But Psalm 119:105 says, “Your word is a lamp to my foot, and a light for my path,” and I trust it. I walk the old trails with new breath. I walk with head high, prayers whispered into wind, and the stories of my ancestors echoing like drums in my ribcage.

For I am not what was done to me. I am not the darkness I passed through. I am not even the child I once was, hiding in shadows. I am the cedar wind that still carries hope. I am the light that survived. I am the fire built by faith. Jehovah did not rescue me so I could blend into the night again—He lit me like a lantern to remind others still buried that morning always comes. And so I walk, Ephesians 5:8 under my feet, scripture in my hands, and His mercy wrapped around me like the warm hide of a well-loved drum. I walk as a child of light—because that is who I was always meant to be.