I do not often pretend to have His words, but – This is for you.
I am the light you cannot see, searching, piercing – not the mild sunlight of a summer day or the glimmer of candle and firelight, but the unescapable blaze of a streetlight on a deserted parking lot when all around is darkness.
I love you.
I saw the look on your face when it happened again, the thing you feared. It was only there for a second before you hid it, but I saw. You were not alone.
When you look around, you see the smiling Others whose lives seem to work – their bodies, their faces, their families. They seem to skip over the hard bits, or laugh them off, or overcome them. They seem so on top of things, and in the darkness you wonder why you are the odd one out.
I know the grief you carry, the tightening of your heart when the subject comes up, the dread of insensitive questions and curious glances. I know how you cry when people move in to care, and cry when they do not.
I know you worry that it will be too much for you, that this thing will make you crack if you face it, that the price is too high. I know exhaustion. I see it in your eyes. I know what you have sacrificed, and though you wonder, I am the one who knows it is not in vain. It will never be in vain.
I see you.
I know you.
You are not the only one.
I know the things you hold close to the chest, the horrors you cannot share lest your world cave in around you. In scores of stripes across my bleeding back I carried them for you. I carry you still.
In your loneliness I am there. When the night closes in, you are held in my light. When everyone else has someone, when the silence of the people who matter the most screams at you, when you’ve forgotten how to be the person you were, when the radiant ship sails without you, I am there.
I know what lies beneath your frustration and your turmoil, I know the palpable midnight of your fear. I am there when it yawns beneath you, when frantically you flail your way to solid ground, panting, shrieking.
Darling, you could fall all the way down and I would be there.
You are mine.
Jesus
So beautiful. Thank you.
I draw a deep breath, and let these truths sink in…way in! Thanks.
Can this really be true? It defies understanding and often what feels true. He IS the LOVE that will not let us go.
I care about the stories behind your words.
Shari, this brought tears. It is so wonderfully touching. It just got right down to the “ouchy places” and was comforting.
Mary Yoder
Tears…just the words I needed to hear. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you
Beautiful. Thank you. “I know the greif you carry… It will never be in vain.”
I have a feeling I will come back to this more than once.
So beautiful! Thank-you!
Tears.
I often wonder what it means when Isaiah says ‘by His stripes we are healed.’ You’ve helped me understand it better.
This post made me think of Isaiah 53 as well. Always been a favorite passage, but this spring it hit me in an all new way. He understands whatever we are going through; He has already walked there before.
Thank you! beautifully written
I love this. May I use it in my Sunday School class?
You may. Enjoy.
Ah, Shari – His words, through you, to me. Thank you.
This is comfort. Thank you!
This puts words into every bit of what I feel today. This week. This month. This year. so? thank-you.
This touched me way deep. Thank you.
This reminded me that “I am not alone” in more ways than one. So easy to think that everything is okay behind the “smiling faces”.( No doubt I am one of them.) Thank you for writing. I’d love to “know” you for real…know what this writing came out of… Maybe in heaven…
I don’t often comment but I do read. 🙂 I think your blog is my favorite. You have a way with words that touches my heart and at times I wish I knew you in person. I think I’d enjoy chatting with you. Thanks for writing, thanks for sharing from your heart, and thanks for using words to touch the hearts of others.
You’re very welcome. Thank you for being brave and saying hi. 🙂
Thank you so much! So encouraging!
This is the first time I’ve read this. Thank you. I keep reading it and rolling it over in my mind, the truth that he is always there.
“I know what lies beneath your frustration and your turmoil, I know the palpable midnight of your fear. I am there when it yawns beneath you, when frantically you flail your way to solid ground, panting, shrieking.
Darling, you could fall all the way down and I would be there.”
It’s like you are seeing inside my mind. It is somehow healing, having my secret terror put into just-perfect words like that. And that last sentence is so startling. Well, yeah… I guess he would still be there! I’m trying to get hold of that.
This is a beautiful letter. Thank you.