When I consider that my present pain
seems to be a culmination,
having risen gradually to its current din
I cannot help but wonder...
At how many points along the way
might help have come,
or had it even arrived already,
and I failed to avail myself of it?
For God's grace surely has gone before me.
I have experienced His love.
He has solved countless dilemmas on my behalf,
for which I have thanked Him, and enjoyed His sweet fellowship.
So why do I now ask Him the why's and wherefore's
of this stabbing feeling in my heart?
He has repaired my heart hundreds of times, and yet
right now it seems no less irreparable than ever.
For there is something I have yet to learn.
God has not left me alone, yet I stand once again
at the precipice. The choice is mine:
To turn back to wander the easy slope, or
to let go, of exactly what, I do not know,
and to fall forward into His loving arms, trusting, believing.
I thought I was mature. I thought I was wise.
For I have walked with God.
But what now is my reward? More pain? More trouble?
Yet another heart-wrenching decision?
Oh, God, is this how you treat a friend?
Then I heard God's voice:
"Have I not brought you into my sphere?
Have I not shared my heart with you?
Are you not experiencing the fellowship of Christ's suffering?
Did you think that intimacy with God is a frivolous thing?
"That which causes you pain is but your own grip.
For the reality you hope to enter is but a construct
of your own imagination. Let go your desperate grasp
and take My hand instead, and I will lead you into all truth."
So forward is my chosen direction,
and I will forsake the easy slope of wandering,
though my meandering climb to this precipice has not been
an entirely ignoble endeavor. Has not God led me thus far?
And so, the irony begins to fade
as Truth and clarity come to light.
As surely as the seed corn must die to attain life,
I must now fall to rise. Forward! and I shall fall
into the arms of God—to be lifted by His grace and power
to places I could never in my own strength imagine.
Once made, the decision is easy.