semi-precious stones

Standing in the beauty of creation on a crisp fall night I feel so alive. The rich dark sky embraces my senses, brings the stars almost within my grasp. God is close.

A few hours later, as I am tossing and turning in anxious sleep, satan hisses. The self-contempt that slithers into my consciousness are earthly things: temporary setbacks, imagined obstacles, past regrets, impending shame. Exhaustion has opened the gate. Like stones taken from a quarry, crushed and spread as base beneath a newly paved road, I am being smothered by layers of lies, oily asphalt.

I wake and God seems so very far away.

My heart beats loudly in the anxious silence.

God hears the voiceless prayers of my heart, invites me closer, shifts my focus away from obstacles, setbacks, shame and regret. God melts the layers of lies, opens my eyes to see that what I fear is temporary or imagined, not impending but tethered in the past.

I find comfort in the necklace I wore for the funeral of my niece, a time when hopelessness, grief, loss and fear gave way to a celebration of her life and her New Life.

In the darkest of moments, when we are feeling less than precious, when we fear death and darkness, God hears our hearts cry. God is already there.

... the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:26-28 NIV

Rw