When I look back, I do not see successes. At least, I do not see them easily. Instead, I see a mind that second-guesses And find that failure fits more feasibly. When I look back, I do not see your mercies, Or seeing them, still feel they are not true. All good seems covered up in controversies, In all the ways I failed and still fail you. When I look back, I see the circumstances That roll like waves across a wind-swept sea. I do not see the Son, the second-chances, The grace that still abounds for those like me. When I look back, I must distrust the lies That claim truth is determined by my eyes.
Fear sometimes settles on you like a fog. You feel it all around you, it’s presence chilling and uncomfortable. It obscures your sight, preventing you from seeing the way forward. You know the world around you still exists, that reality is bigger than what you can presently perceive. You know that the fog will eventually lift.
But sometimes it doesn’t.
Or, at least, it doesn’t lift as soon as you’d like. That’s when you start to panic and despair.
It sounds silly, but fear can make you suddenly less certain of what you know to be true. God’s love and his faithfulness, his mercy and his grace, his purposes in discipline and the profit in the testing of our faith—suddenly, these subjects seem strangely foreign. You know the Scriptures. You’ve sung the songs, heard the sermons, read the books. But in the middle of the fog, as fear clouds your ability to think clearly, truth doesn’t appear to come to your mind or heart as quickly or as easily as it once did.
And yet, even when fear feels pervasive and overwhelming, what is true is still true. Though our perceptions may make recognition of truth more difficult, reality has not fundamentally changed. God is still on his throne. The light still shines in the darkness and the darkness still has not overcome it. The Lord’s love remains undiminished, his purposes unhindered. If God really causes all things to work together for good, then he’s still working, even in the fiercest seasons of fear. In spite of how we may feel, he has neither forgotten nor forsaken his children.
It isn’t easy to hold on to truth in the midst of fear. Thankfully, the Lord remains a firm foundation for feeble souls. Fear can reveal our weakness; his power is still made perfect in weakness. So we trust in him though we don’t feel okay, hope in him though things seem hopeless, and keep following him though we don’t know the way. And as we do these things, we will find him faithful, as he has always been and always will be.
The psalmist waited patiently for you And then bore witness to your care and grace. Relief followed the waiting like the dew After a night when darkness hid your face. Though you are never absent, we may not Detect you in the time before the dawn. Your promises—oft doubted, oft forgot— Prove true, a hope long hidden, never gone. But patience is required, for though the end Is certain, yet it does not come too soon. You use the time we wait to break and mend. In silence, we learn how to sing in tune. So hope, though time be now a source of strain. Our waiting on the Lord is not in vain.
I have watched this wound heal for a week or so.
Day to day, I do not detect
movement of skin,
change of shape,
decrease of pain.
Then one day, I do.
The gap is less wide, the depth less deep.
All around,
dead skin darkens,
new skin appears.
It is not finished. It is still sore.
I wanted the process to be faster.
Nevertheless, the process is working.
Healing is occurring.
He is mending,
slowly
but surely.
Perhaps the same is true of my heart.
Potatoes baking in the oven.
The smell—oil and earth commingled—
seasons the air, circulated
by the unit’s fan, its white noise drowning
the quiet, though the quiet is still felt.
I am alone here.
I recall the doctrines, that you
are ever present, ever with me.
Why then can I not feel you,
hear you, smell you, detect you
somehow in the room?
The silence seems stronger sometimes.
But truth is truth, even when
perception challenges reality.
“And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Matthew 28:20
Presence.
Presence can make the act of sitting through a terrifying movie more bearable. Presence can make a nervous child more courageous. Presence can strengthen and encourage in powerful ways.
Presence can also cause a tempted eye to avoid the glance. Presence can make a child who’s considering disobedience choose to obey. Presence can remind and convict in powerful ways.
as i learn to walk 