It Requires Safety

Yesterday I wrote about one aspect of the good news of Jesus — that he is about the work of restoring our broken places. I so love that about him. 

But as a dear person recently reminded me, the thought of going back into those broken places is scary. Even turning around on the road to see them there behind us is hard. It can jab us with such sharp pain, just knowing those potholes and drop-offs and broken-up pieces of cement are there, can’t it? 

And the thought of going back into them, even to receive something as wondrous as healing? Terrifying. 

This is why getting to know — really know — the person of Jesus is so paramount first. 

I could not have allowed Jesus to visit those tender and difficult particulars of my life, much less excavate them and begin an in-depth reconstruction project, if I hadn’t first learned to trust him.

That’s just sanity, right? 

But the good news is that he is indeed trustworthy. It takes time to learn this for ourselves — to let the person of Jesus beecome known as real and concerned with us specifically. It takes time to learn what he is like, how he really sees us, how he converses with us, and how he holds us together.

Once that foundation of trust and safety is laid, perhaps we’ll be ready to let him heal us in the deepest of ways. I’ve come to know there is nothing better in all of life than this.

Do you want to get to know this trustworthy Jesus?

This Is Good News

There are many things we could say about the “good news” of Jesus. There are layers and layers of this good news that bring us into a life we’ve never imagined for ourselves or even realized we needed like our own next breath. 

But today I want to focus on just one aspect of that good news. 

John the Baptist, when telling the people to prepare themselves for God-in-the-flesh who was coming to earth among them, said: 

Every ditch will be filled in,

Every bump smoothed out,

The detours straightened out,

All the ruts paved over.

— Luke 3:5

I have experienced this good news of Jesus. 

When I began to know Jesus in a real and intimate way, I could look back on the terrain of my life and see ruts and jagged edges and huge ditches and potholes littered throughout the whole of it. My life’s history was pockmarked with brokenness. 

I was broken, and so was my history.

In my life with Jesus, he has been about the work of filling in those ditches, of smoothing those sharp edges, of filling in all of those potholes. He has been smoothing and filling the back road of my life. 

And do you know what he’s been filling it with? Himself. 

Do you have ditches and potholes and detours and drop-off edges in your own life’s history? Do you want to experience the good news that Jesus brings to you and those places? 

He Wants to Be Chosen by You

In the Look at Jesus course currently underway, we’ve been noticing Jesus as someone who continually puts himself out in front, vulnerable to acceptance and rejection. 

There’s a strength in Jesus — he knows who he is, he knows what he is here to do, he knows who his Father is. But even in that strength and confidence, he is choosing to make himself vulnerable. He offers himself again and again to a small group of friends who don’t fully grasp who he is. He offers himself again and again to crowds of people who ask him to touch them, heal them, restore their lives, and teach them about God — but then often leave him as quickly as they came to him.

He sees the need of people and, moved with compassion, keeps moving toward them. 

But it implies risk.

His friends misunderstand his intent. They want to get bigger, not become servants. They don’t want life with Jesus to include crosses and death. They don’t want to believe they will reject, deny, and leave him all alone. 

He keeps moving toward them anyway. 

Always with Jesus, there is his vulnerability to be received by you. He wants you to draw near. He wants you to know him — really know him — just as he knows and wants to keep knowing you. 

Do you want to draw near to Jesus?

The Path of Progress

Currently reading.

Over the last week, I’ve started reading some new books that we’ve had in our home for a long while and seem perfect companions for me right now. One of those books, by a fellow brother in Christ named Watchman Nee, is called TheNormal Christian Life.

I’ve just this morning opened its pages for the first time and haven’t yet progressed further than the opening preface and table of contents, but I can already tell is it going to help clarify and crystallize elements of our life with God that I have written down in snatches here and there and intuited inside for a great long while. 

For instance, one of the first things I noticed is that several of the chapters begin with the phrase “The Path of Progress.” I assume this means that the author has identified stages of the Christian faith that occur along the way of our formation with God. 

The main thing I want to notice is the fact of this formation itself: there is a path, and we progress along it. 

Our life with God is not a destination. It is not a one-time deal that gets infused into us at a particular moment in time and then is finished forever. 

Yes, there is an end point in the great, grand scope of things. This would be heaven, also known as the new earth in which we will live and reign with God at the end of time. And yes, in the eyes of God, the new life given to us in Christ, because of his crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, makes us sons and daughters who find full acceptance and freedom before God. 

But what happens at the end of time and what we gain at the moment of salvation is not the whole picture. It’s also about what happens in between those two points in time. That is a really important element in the whole scope of it.

There is a path of progress. There is a process of formation that continues while we live. And I, for one, absolutely adore and am grateful for this process. 

This path of progress is about learning the kingdom of God and what it means to live inside of it. It is about being conformed ever more into the image of Christ. It is about growing more and more fully into the reality of our true selves.

Do you consider your life as one that follows a path of progress?

He Loves You

Yesterday we talked about the connection between loneliness and belovedness. Today I want to invite you deeper into a truth I’m sure you’ve heard many times before: 

God loves you. 

I don’t know about you, but that truth didn’t mean anything to me for a really long time. Two-thirds of my life, in fact, was lived without any meaningful experience of that phrase. I heard it, I believed that I believed it, but in reality, it just bounced right off me. 

I’ve learned that the experience of God’s love is essentially connected to the experience of ourselves.

What I mean is, if we aren’t in touch with ourselves, we can’t experience love. Because the part of us that experiences love — the real us, the deep-down us — isn’t there. It’s out to lunch. It’s on vacation. It’s in the avoidance spiral. It’s completely disconnected. Turned off. Shut down.

Being in touch with the truth of ourselves is essential to our experience of God. I would say it’s the essential first step to connecting in a real way to God at all.

Have you experienced God’s love for you in a real and true way? Do you want to?

Knowing Your Belovedness

I shared yesterday that I struggled this week with an acute feeling of aloneness. Thankfully, a book by Henri Nouwen helped broaden my scope to remember that all of us struggle with that same experience. 

Aloneness is a prominent experience of the human condition. 

I’ve been continuing to think about that feeling of aloneness, and it’s caused me to see that part of the reason I experienced it so acutely on Tuesday was because I’d gotten disconnected from the knowledge of my belovedness. 

When I’m connected to the truth of my belovedness, I’m not alone.

I’m connected to God. I feel his delight. I feel free of pressure or expectation or criticism or condemnation because the power of love dispels those dark, negating things. 

I’ve come to deeply and firmly believe that life — salvation — is about discovering our belovedness, exploring the truth of it to better understand and believe in it, squooshing ourselves all around inside of it so that it covers and fills every part of us, and then connecting to its truth again and again and again. 

Perhaps this is what Jesus meant when he said to “abide in his love” (John 15:9). 

Do you know your belovedness? 

This Is Spiritual Formation

God rewrote the text of my life

   when I opened the book of my heart to his eyes.

— Psalm 18:24

A couple weeks ago, I was thinking about the way our lives de-form us.

I was reflecting on many of the pieces of my heart — large, sweeping sections of it down to the tiny nooks and crannies — that Jesus has come in and healed. These pieces and places that he’s healed and the way he’s then reconnected me to the true self he created in conceiving me — this is spiritual formation. This is the work of God (and us) in our life with him.

This is his intent. Healing. Wholeness. Freedom. Life. The extension of the kingdom into the places where we live.

How might God intend to rewrite the text of your life? What is it like for you to consider opening the book of your heart to his eyes?

Pulse Check: What Do You Need?

Needs and wants are funny things, especially when it comes to examining the heart.

I’ve noticed so many times over the last couple years that I’m surprised by my wants and needs — that what I think I want and need isn’t what I really want or need at all, once I really quiet myself to listen.

Has this ever happened to you?

My spiritual director, Elaine, is great at helping me clarify my needs and wants — and not just the difference between them but also what is real and what is superficial assumption. There have been several times in the last few years, for instance, that I’ve come into a session with her upset or confused or fidgety about something. We talk for a while about all the conflict of thoughts and emotions I’m carrying, and then she’ll often ask one of two questions: 

What do you need in this place? 

Or: 

If you could ask God for anything in this place, what would it be?

These are such amazing questions. I’ve found they so often crystallize the difference between what I think I want or need and what I really want or need.

So often when I’m struggling with something, I think that I want God to fix it — to take it away, restore peace and serenity, and just overall to clean things up. But when I really get quiet and listen to my heart’s voice in that place, often the real need or desire is different from that. My heart instead says things like: 

• I want to know God is here. 
• I want to know he hears my heart. 
• I want to remember how to trust him.
• I just want to see his eyes looking at me.

It’s been interesting for me to notice that I don’t necessarily want or need God to fix everything, but rather that I simply want to know he is there, that he sees me, that he’s not going anywhere. 

That kind of distinction just blows my mind. 

For today’s Pulse Check, I’d like to invite you to consider your own wants and needs.

Consider what’s right on the surface — if you had to answer in a quick heartbeat right now, what would you say you want or need in this very moment?

Then take a moment to go deeper. Allow yourself to ask the question again, with more intentionality: What do I really need right here in this place? 

How Does God Reveal Himself to You?

I’m back at home after a lovely, grace-filled week away at Captiva Island. There are so many gifts last week offered me, and I am still so thankful and amazed that it happened.

I’m also very thankful to be home. (I am such a homebody!)

Being home means re-commencing my morning routine at my desk. Being home means enjoying the rhythm and sounds and energy of our life inside this house. Being home means being in touch with the reality of normality. Being home means being back at the church we both have grown to love so much. 

And speaking of church, I got to wondering last night while enjoying the contemplative eucharist service we attend on Sunday evenings …

How does God reveal himself to you? 

He reveals himself to me in so many different ways. 

• There are the pages of scripture, and especially the Gospel accounts that teach me about the Jesus I’ve grown to love so much. 
• There is the love and acceptance and grace and truth given to me by those in my life who care about me. 
• There is the way I learn about God through my girl kitty, Diva. 
• There is the meditative experience of taking photographs, which I’ve begun to realize is a form of prayer for me. 
• There is the sun dancing on water and the wind moving through trees. 
• There is the beauty of sacred chant music and candles and written prayers, which we experience each week at the contemplative eucharist service. 
• There are the words written by others that break open and speak to my heart when I discover them. 

And on and on and on. 

And yet I was thinking last night that the way God speaks and reveals himself to me is only a portion of the ways he can choose to reveal himself to all humanity. 

The way he reveals himself to me can be different than the way he reveals himself to you.

For instance, God reveals himself to Kirk through the sighting of bald eagles flying high in the sky. A friend recently told me that she’s discovered a connection to God while swimming the breaststroke in a recreational pool, alone with God under the water, swimming toward the cross marker at the other end of the pool. One of my closest friends recently shared that being a mom to her newborn girl is teaching her so much about the incarnation of Christ. 

I just love that God can reveal himself to each of us in so many different, unique ways.

So, what about you? How does God choose to reveal himself to you? 

Meeting Jesus on the Beach

Hello there, lovelies.

Today is the first day since being down in Captiva that I left the condo with the express intent to meet Jesus on the beach. 

As I was walking there, I had the feeling of walking to meet him for a date. He was already there on the shoreline, just waiting for me to arrive, and I was on my way. 

It made me smile as I walked to meet him. 

The photo above is one I took once I reached the shoreline to meet him and start walking. The thought I had upon seeing this view was, “The beach is ours.” Such a long stretch without any other people on it. Just a place for me and Jesus to walk and talk and then turn around and do it all over again. 

He met me in a beautifully powerful way there on that shoreline walk today. It’s a conversation I don’t feel free to share out loud here, but it’s enough for now to say that it was one in which I voiced fears and insecurities and then received gifts beyond measure in return. 

It was one that grew my faith. One that asked for my faith to stretch and trust he would be there to meet such a stretch. One that invited me to attach my faith to visible, tangible markers of what Jesus is doing, wants to do, and will do. 

One in which I received the hearts of others and ended up carrying the heart of Jesus in my hand.

Do you want to meet Jesus?

There’s room for you to join us in looking at Jesus together here. You would be more than welcome to join us. I know that he, for sure, would love to spend that time with you too.

His Center Holds

I love when I’m reading through the scriptures and a certain word, phrase, or sentence grabs my attention. Yesterday, and then again this morning, it happened with this short passage in Isaiah: 

God is supremely esteemed. His center holds. 

   Zion brims over with all that is just and right.

God keeps your days stable and secure —

   salvation, wisdom, and knowledge in surplus,

   and best of all, Zion’s treasure, Fear-of-God.

— Isaiah 33:5-6

That little phrase “His center holds” just keeps getting my attention. I stared at it for quite some time yesterday, just being amazed and thankful for it. This morning, I let the words turn over and over again on my tongue. 

His center holds. His center holds. 

I marvel at this way of God, especially since I’m so aware of the struggle in my own life that it has taken to hold fast to my own center, not to mention how long it took to even know what my center was. It takes great strength of character and integrity — some would call it moral fiber — to hold to one’s center. 

God’s center is so strong it always holds. 

Not only do I marvel at the difference between me and God in this, but I also feel such rest in connecting to this God whose center always holds. 

He is sure. Secure. Strong. Stable. 

We don’t have to worry about him crumbling or second-guessing who he is to himself or to us. We don’t have to worry if he can handle what we bring to him or who we are.

His center holds. What great relief that provides to me. 

How can this truth about God be a companion to you today?

Having Fun with Jesus

Something I’ve noticed about Jesus lately is how much he loves to laugh. 

Yesterday afternoon, for instance, I was praying for someone at my desk when I noticed a huge burst of joy exploding in my heart. It was that moment of realizing I’d been in the presence of God and could trust him wholly — and it made me want to dance!

I was back on the beach with Jesus again, dancing around on the sand in my bare feet and even venturing back out into the water with him. We were laughing and playing, and he was smiling and laughing with me, totally enjoying the moment and my joy. 

It’s kind of amazing: the God of the universe, knowing all things and having all wisdom and holding the entirety of creation together, but also enjoying laughter with me.

How might you enjoy the lightheartedness and laughter of Jesus today?

Just Being Held

Today is one of those days when it feels like I’m holding concerns from many different sources in my heart, and the end result is that my heart is now dragging on the ground. It can feel a bit disorienting, like I don’t really know what happened because I thought I was fine just yesterday, but then when I stop and enumerate what I’m holding, I realize it makes a lot of sense that I’m feeling weighted down. 

I’ve had several moments of sitting with Jesus on the beach this morning through this. 

We sit on the beach head and stare out at the waves, and I try to talk to him about the heaviness of my heart. But words are insufficient, and the talking stops almost as soon as it’s started. Usually, I just end up staring back out at the waves, enumerating to myself again all those concerns and reaffirming, “Yeah. It’s there. The heaviness. For a reason.” 

Each time this morning, this cycle of talking, then stopping, then thinking leads to my just leaning into Jesus, my head against his shoulder, so that he can hold me. He puts his arm around my shoulder and pulls me close, just sitting with me and my heaviness. 

And I realize: this is what I want most of all in this place. 

I don’t want someone who will talk with me about solutions. Not right now, at least. I don’t want someone to talk with me at all, actually.

I just want presence.

And being held by Jesus as we sit on the sand and watch and listen to the waves right now? it’s just right. It’s just what I need. 

I love that we can be with Jesus — or, rather, that he can be with us — in whatever state we are. If we need to talk, he’ll talk. If we need to move, he’ll move with us. If we just need presence, he’ll sit with us. 

What do you need in your relationship with Jesus right now?

Love Makes Us Still

I’ve written before that my girl kitty, Diva, teaches me so much about God and our connection to him. Early on, I shared that she teaches me about contemplative prayer. I’ve written how my love for Diva teaches me about God’s love for us, particularly as humans. And more recently, I shared that she teaches me about nature versus nurture. 

This morning she taught me something new — namely, that love makes us still. 

I’ve noticed a pattern with Diva.

For several days at a time, she decides she’s just not that into me. I try to engage her as she’s resting on the couch, and she doesn’t return the interest. I call to her from the bedroom in the evenings, which usually sends her scurrying to my side, but instead she stays planted in the other room. She’s just not that interested. 

It gets rather lonely for a few days, and I miss her.

But then, pretty much like clockwork after a few days, suddenly she’s everywhere I am. She is clingy in an over-the-top-even-for-Diva kind of way. She just can’t get enough of my attention or affection. And since she seems to need it rather a lot, I gladly give it to her. (Between you and me, I’m so glad for her return. I miss her companionship when she’s in those several-days-away hiatuses!)

And then things return to normal. She jumps on our bed at 5 a.m. wanting attention, then settles down and lets us fall back to sleep once she’s received it. She jumps off the couch to follow me a few hours later, once I get up and moving about, fully entrenched in our usual morning routine of sitting at my desk for coffee and prayers for a few hours each day. She alternates between prowling around at my feet and jumping up on my lap and desk during the first chunk of time I’m sitting there. 

And then she becomes very still. 

Just like in the photo above, she will sit on my desk for long lengths of time, completely content to just sit there. She stares at the same exact spot on the desk or out the window for extended moments. She moves her head slowly to look at me if I rub her head, not really inclined to move around.

She’s just content. Just being. Near me.

This morning I realized it’s because she’s fully resting in love. She’s received her usual fill of attention and affection, received during that first big chunk of time we’re together at my desk, and now she’s able to just rest in it. 

Can we do the same? 

Perhaps you can relate to Diva, going away from love for long stretches at a time, preferring to make it on your own for a while, only to scurry back to the source of love after you’ve been away, then drinking it in huge gulps because your thirst has gotten so parched. Or finding yourself in a normative rhythm with God, spending time prowling around at his feet or sitting on his lap and letting him love you each day. Or perhaps, maybe sometimes, you find yourself completely content in that love, settled into a place of stillness and peace as you allow yourself to just be you, fully inhabiting yourself and fully loved, in the presence of God.

Where in this picture are you today?

He Knows You

I don’t know about you, but I have gone through so many seasons of my life feeling lonely and unseen by the majority of people. Finding people in life who take the time to really see and know us is rare, isn’t it? (I, for one, am immensely grateful and hold on tight to those who do come along and offer such extraordinary friendship!)

That feeling of being known, being seen and understood, and being selflessly loved and cared for as we are is rare and an incredible gift. 

That is the kind of knowing Jesus offers you. 

A couple weeks ago, we explored the truth that Jesus wants to know you, and we talked about one way that kind of relational knowing can look with him. And in those cases, we talked from the place of what it can be like for us to choose to share ourselves with Jesus and open ourselves to the experience of being known by him in those places.

Today, I’d like to center on the aspect of Jesus that already does see and know you, without you having to do anything to bring that seeing and knowing about. 

Do you ever find yourself in those moments of loneliness, wanting someone — at least one person — to be with you where you are and take the time to see with you what is there? Do you find yourself longing for someone to completely understand, without your having to wonder if they really get it or having to hide parts of yourself that might not be acceptable or understood? 

That is the way Jesus knows you. 

He knows and understands all of you. He knows you in the inmost being. When you are feeling alone and wishing for someone to see and know you, Jesus is ready to know you in that way. 

What is it like for you to receive the idea of being known by Jesus in this way?

It Doesn't Have to Look a Certain Way

One thing I am continually struck by in the vocational work of formation that I do is that life with Christ does not look one particular way for everyone. 

Each person is unique. Each person’s story is unique. The way each of us were formed by God to be is unique. The way each of us were formed by our own particular lives is unique. 

Jesus wants to walk with you in your own particular life. 

He wants to be with you as you are.

If you are an extrovert, he wants to connect to your extroversion. If you are musical, he wants to connect to that musicality in you. If you are quiet and introverted, he wants to know you in that quiet, introverted way that you are. 

You don’t have to be someone else.

You don’t have to be other than he already made you to be. 

This is exciting for someone like me, whose life’s work is to walk alongside others and pay attention with them to their lives and the presence and movement of God in their particular life.

Every conversation is different. It is absolutely glorious and beautiful and amazing. I love to see how God is speaking and forming each person in unique and utterly creative ways.

What are the particulars of your one particular life? How can you invite Jesus into those particularities today?

He Has All the Time in the World

I’ve shared with you that I’ve been walking through a season of difficult questions. I keep bringing those questions to Jesus — sometimes in anger, sometimes in grief. And I shared yesterday that I’m aware through all this struggle that Jesus values me and the struggle. 

I shared that he values you in the same way, too. 

This morning, I became aware of yet another aspect of Jesus in the mix of all this: his infinite patience. 

At this point, it feels like Jesus and I have been talking about this struggle for forever.

Really, it’s just been about a month.

But every time I join him on the beach in a time of personal prayer, this is the immediate place I go. Sometimes we’re walking into the sunset. Sometimes we’re sitting on the shoreline crest. Sometimes we’re stopped in the sand, facing each other, and I’m waving my hands wildly about, bumping up against the limits of my human understanding. 

He just keeps being with me in it. 

A lot of times in the struggle, I’m talking so much that I won’t let him get a word in edgewise. He’s fine with that. He keeps listening. 

Sometimes in the struggle, my heart is pained so much that I don’t want to listen to him, even if he did have something to say. I put a wall between us as I look out at the ocean and contemplate the waves and my struggle. He’s okay with that, too. He gives me my space. 

So far in this struggle, I have received his ongoing infinite patience.

He has all the time in the world with me on this.

When I did finally give up one day and surrender my stymied questioning, at least for the moment, he didn’t try to talk back to me about it. All he did was hold me and sing over me. 

This morning was perhaps the first time in all of this long struggle that I actually listened to him.

I made my case yet one more time, and then I listened. It was morning, perhaps around 8:30, and we were walking south on the beach. The sun was not yet warm. The sand was cold and wet beneath our bare feet. 

I had stopped talking, and we walked quietly for a few moments. He knew I was listening. 

And do you know what he did? 

He looked up at the sky for a minute. He looked over at me and smiled. And then he looked back up at the sky and started, slowly, talking to me about the creation story. 

He took me back to before the beginning of time. 

It was a long story. We are still, in fact, talking about it. And I became so aware during this morning’s walk that he will take as much time as is needed to do this conversation justice. 

There were several times in the conversation when I grew impatient. I had things to do and people to see today. I couldn’t take the fullness of time needed to cycle through the entire creation story, attendant with all my noticing and my questions along with it, all in the space of one morning walk. 

That was okay too. We’ll still be there tomorrow. He’ll still be there. Ready to pick things up right where we last left off. 

How might you receive the patience of God toward you right where you are today?

He Values You

Earlier this week, I shared a peek into a struggling season with Jesus I’ve been living through. It doesn’t dominate my every waking moment, but some days and hours are harder than others. 

One of the greatest gifts from Jesus through these difficult patches is his valuing of me.

As we sit on the shoreline crest and I sputter out my confusion or anger or sadness, I’m aware that I have his full attention. He’s not trying to sweep my struggle under the sand. He’s not telling me not to question or feel the things I do. He’s listening. He values what I feel and think and say. 

This morning, as we were walking on the beach again, I asked him what he would say to you today. 

He said he values you. 

Whatever you’re walking through today, he values you. You have his full attention.

He will walk with you and listen. He will look fully into your eyes. He will hold your hand if you’d like him to. He will put his arm around your shoulder. He will give you space if that’s what you need. 

This is a relationship of full and dignifying value. He values you completely. 

What is receiving value from Jesus like for you today?

What Would You Say to Him?

Last week we talked a lot about the posture of Jesus toward you, and at the end of the week, we talked about taking Jesus up on his offer to simply be with you. We said it was the beginning, and that it was prayer. 

Did you say yes to Jesus? 

If not, the offer still stands. It always stands. 

And the very next step is conversation. 

What would you say to Jesus right now? 

As I’ve shared with you already, my conversations with Jesus happen so often on the shores of the beach lately. Could you imagine walking with Jesus on the beach, too? What does the beach look like? What are the two of you doing? 

Or perhaps another place feels more natural to you — a living room, your kitchen table, perhaps your favorite chair. 

Where can you imagine meeting Jesus? Take a moment to be with him in that place. What would you like to say to him there?

He Will Sing Over You

I have struggled with Jesus quite a lot the last few weeks. He has my heart, and he is the most beautiful, glorious vision in my life … and yet we have struggled. 

I have hard questions for him. Questions that plague my heart and soul. Questions that disrupt my days. Questions my mind can’t answer. 

My mind swims and swims, searching for answers, looking for sense, wanting to know God’s grace and truth in places that seem wanting. 

Where are you here? I ask. Where were you there?

I go round and round with him on this. I keep following the trail of questions. I notice almost imperceptible answers, and I follow them, too. 

At times, I think I have understood, and so I follow the trail back to the source of my question and begin the path again, seeing if the answer has come clear. But it still eludes me.

As much joy and life as I carry with me most days, there is a quadrant of my heart that suffers and grieves and weeps before Jesus, unable to know his heart toward me in these questions that I ask.

I’ve been weary. I’ve felt sad. 

This morning, I curled on the couch with my Bible to spend time with him. I opened to the psalms and read about his love. It is a love that never ends, I read. A love that never ends. 

And yet in these places of questions I hold, I have questioned his love. 

My mind started the litany of questions and possible answers again. I started to review them over and over again. And I felt weary. 

Eventually, I stopped.

I stopped talking and asking and positing and just laid my head against him. We were sitting on the beach, at the crest of the shoreline, shoes off, facing the waves. He sat on my right, and I just stopped talking and put my head against his shoulder. Rested my heart and mind. Rested all that work. Gave up, at least for the moment.  

And the next thing I knew, he was singing over me. 

He had his arm wrapped around my shoulder, and he sang quietly over me. It felt like being enfolded in his arms, fully safe and secure. Almost like a small child held in her mother’s arms, full of trust in her mother’s care.

And it was enough. 

In that moment, I felt his God-ness and my human-ness.

I saw that my questions mattered to him because I matter to him, but I also saw that he holds all things. Though I have been rattled, he is calm. He knows what he is doing. And if I don’t know and can’t comprehend, that is okay. He is God, and he knows.

He always knows.