Lament.

artwork by: joseph henry sharp

I don't know when I lost it.
The knowing that You are on my side.  When the thanksgiving ceased and I began to count the fears and skipped heartbeats and worst-case scenarios.  When dread smoked out joy.  When the art and dancing became childish.
And so I sit here this morning with dark circles under my eyes because the last five nights have been the almost-sleepless kind.
And I still don't know when I lost it.

"Grace upon grace..." is what the pastor said.  I wonder if that grace can reach me.  I always thought that it was circumstances that made us wearied and bruised.  But I've come to realize that we can eat ourselves up from the inside out. Like the plague.

Does grace reach that far?  To those of us indoctrinated who deteriorate from the inside?  I don't pretend that I don't choose this.  I allow myself to be suffocated by fear and wait for the bad news to come again.
It will, because Your words say it will.

It has.  I don't understand why You have allowed the trouble I've seen.  It seems passive.

And these days the dread can be so strong that I wonder if this is all there is for me here in this dust for a body.  I want to surrender, to the good and the bad, because it's all the same for Kingdom people.  It's all Yours.

I have to believe, I'm trying to believe, that there is good to come and that the bad news won't seem so bad after I've walked ahead, after a few tomorrows, when I'm a bit closer to Home.

But God, I'm tired.

And I don't remember seasons of rest and I don't know if I can know a Sabbath rest, and maybe it's really just, well, for the ones who do.
So on a sunny April morning, I sit here pondering bad news.
with You.

"Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?  Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God."
                                                                                      -Psalm 42:5