When it is easy. When it is hard.
When you vacillate as to your design because you want to get it right, and layers of the alien, the foreign, the formerly-accepted-way-of-looking-at-you have buried you under like layers of silken Saran Wrap….
When the abuse of your childhood makes its way from a former “union” to a true union.
When the alcoholism of your father causes you to act the same way toward the one you swore otherwise.
When the design for the nations rots around you and within you.
When the pregnancies turn to Edenward populace.
When the kids turn from the path of their design.
When you speak one language, and she hears another tongue transposed and backwards.
When the clowns challenge you by impersonating his voice, saying, he’s just like your father.
When death truly means death, and love hangs by a thread, and seasons leaving you feeling as though you are roommates.
When you are given permission to leave one another, and the Father follows that up with the name of your close friend who was also given a choice and a promise of blessing either way.
When the enemy assaults you so much you wonder if you have lost your sanity.
When pastors call you a terrible shepherd, and friends call you the unrepentant of Matthew 18.
When all has gone to “worse”…….
Where do you go when all you want to do is curse the day of your birth?
What do you say, when the clowns are attempting to call your bluff, and a witch rubs it in by sending flowers to the place where you buried your beloved?
I will tell you.
You let Him prepare a table before you in the presence of your enemies, and you let Him anoint your head with oil.
You let yourself walk with grief, and you observe that grief, and then you ask Him to cover you with the shadow of his wings, and you get back into the fray, and you do the things you know you are supposed to do.
And you remind the Clown Prince of his tininess, and of the King’s greatness.
And you ask Father to minister from His storehouses.
And feed on His faithfulness, even if you are reduced to repeating the refrain, G-d, you’re faithful, you’re faithful.
And you allow Him to cause you to float down the river of His reality and of His rest.
This is what it means to be held…
He has you.
And that is the walk in the shadow of the valley (Psalm 23) and Psalm 84. He is the peace in the center of storms. Thankfully, gratefully, by His grace, we turn to Him.
OMG, you let Him prepare a table before you, I dreamed all these words last night, our hearts are with you, the Lord binds and bonds to help, receive it all, even the littlest things.