Why is it, as Christmas comes…the heartaches seem to pile up...press in like a vice...threatening to pilfer our souls?
…the husband dead in an Arizona apartment, my friend caring for his shattered wife and children…texting a desperate cry for prayer.
...the bright boy, struck down with a debilitating disease two years ago—now hope fading, weakly whispering at the breakfast table, “Mom, I don’t want to be like this…”
These are only two…hearts breaking…friends…family…people I love.
You know Lord…this ache in me, and the cries continually pouring forth…in my waking moments, and the dark of night…especially the dark of night.
Lord, where are you? Today, this week, this moment...Are you there? Are you in the heavens, doing Your will?
I wait in this silence.
Then…outside my window…a drop of dew, tiny pinprick of moisture on the bare branch.
And a still, small voice—your voice...
This is how it is…your answers so small that I might not even notice. So often, I do not.
…and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. When the layer of dew evaporated, behold, on the surface of the wilderness there was a fine flake-like thing, fine as the frost on the ground. When the sons of Israel saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, “It is the bread which the LORD has given you to eat.
There in the wilderness…every morning, this layer of dew…disappearing under the warmth of the morning sun…but under the dew...a fine, flake like thing, fine as the frost on the ground.
Manna…bread of life…
but...not what I was expecting.
Why do I always look for the writing on the wall...
Scan the horizon for rainbows stretched out like glittering jewels...
Refuse to settle for less than a mountain that quakes with smoke...
to assure me that you are here, that you have come, that you have not forgotten us?
But instead… hidden under the smallest things… answers that don’t seem like answers at all, until I take the time to hold them in my hand…
and I realize how you have sustained me, fed me, provided for me.
...for us.
Take, eat…this is My body, broken for you…
Bread of life…Let us see them Lord… drops of dew, fine flake like things...
Whispers of hope waiting for us to gather up in our hands and eat and live…
Interesting that I, too, wrote today, about the pain found in this season... the hard news that seems to pile on, or do I just feel it pressed up against the glitter and gaiety of Christmas celebrations. I don't know. But, I so appreciated you reminder to look for Him, the Bread of Life, flaked all around today! Thank you.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful Tricia. I too wrote briefly that Jesus cares not more for how we worship Him during this season than any other day of the year, but just that we come. Even in,our brokenness and heartache He is a drop of dew to parched souls. Thank you for the reminder.
ReplyDeleteBeautifully spoken. As I too, have this ache for the pain around me,in those I know and those I hardly know, He impressed me with when Jacob woke in a foreign land and said, ...'surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it...'
ReplyDeleteA friend sent me the following lyrics by Ben Thomas from the band So elated:
ReplyDelete"God keeps slipping out of underneath rocks
in alleys off the beaten paths...."
Somehow there is always a raven born for the moment I need something. What you post is often such a pair of wings. Merry Christmas with gratitude. Kat in Alaska.
ReplyDelete