God is in the Darkness

"Trauma's storm can mask the Christ and feelings can lie.

I draw all the hurting voices close and I touch their scars with a whisper:

sometimes we don't fully see that in Christ, because of Christ,

through Christ, He does give us all things good - until we have

the perspective of years.  In time, years, dust settles.

In memory, ages, God emerges.  Then when we look back,

we see God's back.  Wasn't that too His way with Moses?

 "When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and 

cover you with my hand until I have passes by. Then I will 

remove my hand and you will see my back" (Exodus 33:22-23).

Is that it?  When it gets dark, it's only because God has 

tucked me in a cleft of the rock and covered me, protected, with

HIs hand?  In the pitch, I feel like I'm falling, sense the bridge giving

way, God long absent.  In the dark, the bridge and my world shakes, 

cracking dreams.  But maybe this is true reality: It is in the dark that

God is passing by.  The bridge and our lives shake not because 

God has abandoned, but the exact opposite:  

God is passing by.

God is in the tremors.

In the blackest, God is closest, at work, forging HIs perfect and right 

will.  Though it is black and we can't see and and our world seems 

to be free-falling and we feel utterly alone, Christ is most present to us, 

I-beam supporting in earthquake.  Then He will remove His hand.

Then we will look.  Then we look back and see His back."

Ann Voskamp

One Thousand Gifts