I find the daily banter in our house especially humorous, interesting, if not sometimes distracting, these days. I don’t know where to go with the reeling thoughts I carry around in light of where we find ourselves in the world, and more specifically, in my own country, which has never felt more divided. The banter is comforting.

What’s a writer to do? Isn’t there a moral responsibility to capture in words the political/cultural/societal times in which we find ourselves? I mean, if not for ourselves, then for our grandchildren…as lessons in what not to do?

This morning, I was just trying to share a little example of something I’d learned in my life that I’d wished someone might have been able to teach me before the fact, when Todd looked up from the paper and said, “Nobody in the world is going to care about a lesson you have to share about that.”

He didn’t mean it like it sounded—he was reading the latest unsettling news—but it hit me just like it sounded. Immediately, I felt less than minuscule. I told him I wasn’t writing for the world, that I write for one—someone, somewhere, who might connect—even if it’s just for God Himself. That’s who I write to, like right now. Hello you one person!

And then I walked away, to sit down at my desk and forge on. But I’ve been stewing.

Sometimes I think things happening on the grand, worldly scale are only magnified examples of what we human beings experience inside our souls and around us in our own everyday, ordinary lives. That’s a depressing thought, I know, but it’s never been more apparent to me—that our fallen selves are living in a fallen world—than it is now.

He was right. My little experiences in life have come and gone. And I’ve had the flu for four weeks, and in that weakness, everything feels louder and harder to hold. I’m at a loss and am grateful to those who can articulate words that matter in the midst of this pain and chaos and disillusionment. It would be so easy to curl up in a corner, escape any sense of responsibility, but the thought of that only makes me feel worse.

So this morning, I did what I do and said, “Lord, my head is reeling. Help! Calm me down before I do another thing. Because I am convinced You accept me just as I am, so here I am…

And what do you think He said to my heart?

“Just be you.”

For you, here, still reading, I’m convinced God accepts us in our fallen state and doesn’t let us go—as a reminder that we need to let go. Maybe I was doubting that, because He reminded me.

When I woke up this morning at 3:00 a.m. ish, finally by 4:15 I figured I’d get up and have an early start. But soon enough, I realized I was too tired and crawled back under the covers. That’s when I started to recite Psalm 23, like I do when I wake up and can’t go back to sleep. When I finish I aways say, “Jesus, help, help me sleep.” That’s the important part. And without fail, I’m out like a light, as if I’d counted ten thousand sheep. Sheeps? He is the Good Shepherd, after all. 

Last night, though, I found myself praying the Psalm quite differently, not as rebellion but as a confession.

“The Lord is my Shepherd…I do want. So much. And You know it better than anyone. I have tried to change this and have failed. Miserably.

You have not made me lie down in green pastures. I stand on this road, restless and anxious.

The water isn’t quiet. It is raging and rising, and bitter cold. My soul resists the restoration your well has to offer. 

It feels like I’m on anything but righteous paths — cruelty, horror, injustice, and greed stretch out before me.

I walk alone in the valley. Where are You? The shadows of death are everywhere and I am filled with fear. It’s freezing down here. I’m frozen in my fear; and the ice is treacherous.

Where is your rod? Evil abounds in the city and state, in my country and throughout the nations. Where is Your staff? We are falling, falling, falling…fallen. 

We’re surrounded by enemies and there is no place at the table. We need Your anointing. Our cups are empty.

Goodness and mercy has never felt more out of reach. Who will really dwell in Your house…?”

But after that, do you want to know what Jesus had to say to my heart? Good. I hoped you would.

He said, “I understand. Thank you for your honesty.” Because if anyone understands the difference between one’s emotions and one’s heart, He does. He is the good Shepherd.

Then I immediately fell asleep, for two more hours.

As the words once came to me during a season of deep grief, they still do today. I opened my Bible to the Book of Habakkuk and read it.

“Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen…

“Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior. The Sovereign LORD is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to go on the heights.”

I know no other way.

________________

Habakkuk 3: 18-19

Feature photo: Unsplash, Dawid Zawiła