waiting for the dawn...

The last couple of weeks have been shadowed by a lingering darkness.
Darkness that chills the bone
clouds the mind
and wearies the soul.
It was the collision point of multiple burdens in the reality of the unpredictable twists of life, and my spirit was numb with the journey,
full of a heaviness I couldn't shake.

This past year has brought the arrival of a plethora of real hurts and struggles:
Broken marriages.
Broken homes.
Broken hearts.
Addictions.
Cancer without cure.
Depression.
Death.
And the list goes on...
each representing countless hours of prayer
each met with what felt like defeating silence.
And in the overwhelming moments of feeling that I had missed something somewhere, an exasperation choked my lungs -

"Are you even there?"
"Are you even listening?!!"

I crawled into my bed that nite,
hoping my closing eyes would shut out the heaviness of my heart.

"God doesn't turn all things to good...He just gives us the strength to live through them." These words followed by a list of dire situations and hurting people burned into my already battered brain.

Was it true?
It's nice to say that God turns all things to good...I mean, that's what the Bible says.
But what is our human reality of that?
It's one thing to say something you believe,
and an entirely different thing when you are called to walk that out in life...
sometimes down dark tunnels,
surrounded by silence,
surrounded by the coldness of the moment,
and no speck of light in view to bring hope of the end.

I was reminded of a verse God had given me earlier that week for a friend...
He delights in every detail of their lives.
Though they stumble, they will never fall,
for the Lord holds them by the hand. Psalm 37:34b-24

But the feeling of this moment was that God had forgotten,
that He wasn't listening.
that it wasn't hitting the priority end of His list of things to do today.
And I was broken...weary...
feeling like the battered wife of life,
crying myself to sleep.
Stumbling...

...and it came.
An outstretched hand,
a vice-grip on my spirit,
a beautiful surprise...
through the "not so random" email of a student...
through the words of a song...
through the prayer of a friend...
precisely timed.
I knew God was reminding me He was listening.
He was gently teaching me that my feelings don't define Him.
That He was aware of what I needed, when I needed it.
Because He cares about the details...
about the falling sparrows.

And I learned something about prayer...
Sometimes they are like seeds - going through the process of growth before we see the fruit of them. It takes time - even years - for them to be fully answered.
Sometimes our prayers affect the immediate,
sometimes they invest in the future,
but every one of them is heard by a living God
who formed us in the depths
and will reach us in the depths.And in crawling out of bed to face another day,
I know it is in the times you feel like giving up that you need to press harder...
for sunrise is just a lingering moment away from darkness.