soft

Two nights ago I finished a dear nightly routine, of reading Henri Nouwen’s The Inner Voice of Love. In the second last of his journal entries he acknowledged to himself a choice he had to make, of remembering his time of struggle and depression as a moment of epic failure or as the point where God opened him up and drew him in deeper and closer.

Is this how I will remember the last several months? I have the choice to do so.

Will I choose to remember the past, and see His hand – see Him molding me? Several moments in particular cause me anxiety when I think on them, but as I bring my pain home to Christ who is the centre and knitter-together of me I see healing and health.

I see that in the moments of desperate confusion, He is making me just as I should be – that He is strong as I am made more weak, when I go soft:
The moments where I stood shaking beside Him, confronting fear itself and He conquered.
The moment when I drove hours away from a man I love in a hospital bed to care for others at Christmas, hating myself with every kilometer that passed, yet have found as I arrive to this city He has placed me in that even still, Love will never fail.
The moments alone in my little place, feeling just that – alone, yet drawn nearer to Him than I have yet been.
The moments when I was grasped at and asked to ‘save’ life slipping away and in the next breath to ‘just take’ it away – when my utter helplessness was revealed, I see His profound grace that I continued breathing, continued standing, found the right words to say with hands I pray were vessels of His comfort.
The moment when I made that phone call home to admit weakness, the walk to work to share the toll suffering has had on my naivete, the email to professors dolling out unanswered questions toward an uncertain future, the conversation with the unfamiliar physician of the physical symptoms of a life brought to brokenness – the points of real honesty, where I am utterly broken and He is utter justice and good and love and health, and He holds with infinite hands the eternal questions of a finite mind.
The moments where the mind is utterly blank and the gift of logic goes, and His gift of faith in His Son paints the truth through all of me. And I fear less losing the things I’ve held dear, if I lose it for Him.
The moment, where in His ways you open up and later, reeling without familiar guideposts of propriety, question who you are and what you’ve done.
But then, you quiet in the realization it’s all His peace and grace, and vulnerable is God in you. Where shame used to reside, may the Lord take His place – and I with bended knee and simpler speech am more aware of my need and His gift.

Today, as I remember I give thanks:

• for His grace through rambling efforts.
• for His mercy on me, on them, on us.
• for that Sunday night.
• study sessions with J.
• home is whenever I'm with You.