In the still morning light, You are there, waiting for me to wake, don’t want to miss a thing. Your gaze rests on me gently, unpressing, undemanding, biding to see if I’ll respond, notice, what I will ask from You. It would be easy to pass You by, move on without a glance, because these beautiful gates with You need my eyes to clear and my ears to open.
I’ve been so casual about Your presence, Your promise to be here.
Why? Why do you want to stay? Is it just a part of Your divine job description, who You have to be, without choice or agreement? But You are God, beholden to no-one, Definer of it all. You don’t have to do anything You don’t choose. And You are Love. Even as I ask these things, You remind me of how You promise to be on all sides of me at every turn, ahead and behind, carrying and holding me. Of all the things You have so carefully and undeniably tended me through, over years and years with no pause in every valley and every passe.
And the question running through all of it is ‘Does this look like duty? Or does this look like Love?’ The kind of poured-out love that just wants to be with me because there is nowhere else You want to be. You will stay here, for just a moment’s attention, a fleeting conversation if that is all I offer, because You see me as worth every second, every moment, all the waiting. Because Your life forever with me begins now and You’re breathing form into our eternity in each of these moments.
Why would I ever want for another? For someone not yet here, when Your presence is here and now; close with me in the emptiness and the space and everything I could ever need. If I can just turn down the noise, tune out the distractions, stop my eyes from roaming for another to fill the gap when You are right here, just waiting for me to see. You come so close that You give me Your breath, Your touch reaches the ache that another’s arms can not reach. And You never hurry. You never hurry. You stay with Me, steady and sure, holding as long as I need.
And I can be so faithless. I can so quickly follow another, give another my first morning hello and my last goodnight, allowing my God-given need for companionship and love to be my permission to turn my eyes away from You, to glow in the attention of another. When I know, I know that You have said that it is Your arms that need to carry me through this, through this final ending of moving out of the home of my marriage, no one else’s.
And I shift and juggle, believe that I can balance both, but slowly it slips and tilts and I give You only a fraction of my time rather than my whole hearted devotion that I know belongs to You. And so…slowly…as You drift to the edge of my gaze, so my peace wanes, my hope dims and my footing lands less sure, until I am in a full-blown storm, up-ended with my insides churning when my finances take an unexpected plummet and free-fall around me.
My mind becomes a terrified war, fighting the pressing lie that I am alone and cornered with no way out; pushing away solutions that I know would only leave me more trapped, would only lead me further into darkness. And as evidence upon evidence stacks up in my mind for how there is no answer and no way out, I know how single mums can end up in desperate places doing desperate things to provide for their children.
The screaming noise in my mind comes with no mercy and no stopping, scraping like metal against metal; but there’s a shout that sounds like You, cutting across the wind and the waves, reaching for me like a tether in the tide, a safety rope in the fall.
And I know that this is why You said that it is Your arms that need to carry me through this time; no one else’s. Your eyes are the ones to lock with, Your voice the one to hang onto. In the swallowing fear and seeping darkness all I can do is lie myself down and say Your name. Jesus. And wait for the doom to clear, for the terror to submit. And it slowly does. You come close and stay with me, leading me steady in the ways that only You know how. You take the thorns out of mind, unhook the claws, one-by-one; removing the lies wrapping like a web until my head can lift and feel the sun again, see the light. Bringing me to feel safe again. You’re so faithful a Father.
You gently show me again how to sit and eat with You; to feast on Your peace, lay back in Your hope, bathe in Your favour, enjoy Your love. And my enemies can watch me eat. Fear, doom and despair are cleared to the side whilst Your love takes the floor.
And I know how frail and human I am, so easily stumbling and I tell you that I’m sorry and that I’m thankful for Your kindness in it all. But you don’t chide, You don’t disapprove, You don’t even withhold. You just tell me in the quiet that You remember how I inked my skin with You back then. How I marked myself as Yours across my body and You did not take this lightly. You saw this and You do not forget and so You will come and rescue me every time, every time, because I belong to You and I really am Yours. There is never a time that You will grow lax, where Your commitment will run thin. Because we made a covenant back then and You are a faithful Father and a faithful Husband to me. You are so beautiful.
If this isn’t steady love then I don’t know what is. If this isn’t devotion, rather than duty, then what else could be required? And so in the empty stillness of the morning, I will turn my heart to You, give You my first ‘hello’, let You come and fill the space. I’m so glad You are here.