It's been a bit of a shipwreck, I'm afraid. Are you there, too?
I felt like I was stepping out on Him, growing and stretching and digging roots deeper and dwelling in peace, and suddenly it's been more sinking and struggling and searching and sputtering.
Matt pulled up a class recording from two years ago, and suddenly, there on the screen, my dad. Dad audited every class of Matt's he could...not just following on zoom, glasses pushed down his nose, but buying every book and reading every page and doing every assignment. His face pops up, just like that, he was fine and well and present and it was just a moment ago, and the hole is deep and wide and sometimes, out of nowhere, it catches you off.
We've been sick, varying levels of various gunk, but snotty babies and sore throats can cling to you heavier than the cold does, can eat away cloudy at clarity and peace.
We've bit off more than we can handle, and the daily disappointments that come with life in a broken world pile up as fast as the too-many tasks do, and it's easy to stray from My burden is easy, My yoke is light.
In a constant effort to YES, I often miss the best yesses. Add in a few extra kids for a few extra days, Matt suffering a serious head wound and concussion Sunday morning (of course it was), an overwhelming overlap of cross country meets and volleyball games, Matt traveling, continued dark clouds over Haiti-home, an impending court date that weighs heavy on two dear ones entrusted to me...it's 3 am and I'm here with you, the place I daily long to be and have found truly impossible to get.
What I am looking for is only found in Him.
The silver bullet to all the spiritual warfare, to all the brokenness, to all the disappointments, to all the pain, it's intimacy with Him.
The friend I wish for--He is ready with coffee and wisdom and grace, a listening ear and a mighty hand.
The healing my heart aches for is in His wings, the stronghold needed from the storm, it is Him.
He keeps us in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Him...the path of the righteous is level; He makes level the way of the righteous. What our soul yearns for in the night, the shade from the heat, the shelter from the storm, the covering that is cast over all peoples, the One who swallows up death forever. The One I am waiting for, the One who wipes away tears from all faces, the remover of our reproach, the Lord is the everlasting rock.
I do not need a better way to organize the toy chest. I do not need another meal plan. I do not need girls' night or date night or a quiet night, don't need to know how this or that are going to work out. I don't need to feel 100%, or to feel valued or affirmed by others, or to do all that feels expected.
The Lord, family, will ordain peace for us, for He has indeed done for us all our works.
That verse 12 from Isaiah 26 boils it down true.
HE has indeed done for us all our works. All that is needed, He has done. Done for us.
And ordained me peace.
Peace has been a slippery fish this current storm. The sky's been all shades of dark and the waves all kinds of pushy.
Once again, I'm releasing my best-intentioned grip on the paddles, shipwreck though it may and IS, and "It will be said on that day: Behold, this is our God; we have waited for Him, that He might save us. This is the Lord, we have waited for Him; let us be glad and rejoice in His salvation." 25:9
It's not sink or swim, not for us.
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