I Stop Time and Walk With God
life goes and goes and goes and is (not) gone
I am sitting at my father’s desk, searching for words just as he searched for them while he lived. Decades of carefully crafted thoughts linger in the air here. I breathe them in—all those years of sermons and newspaper articles. Around me are his books, his knick-knacks, and the last notes he scrawled on paper before he left this office and this world for the last time.
Life goes. It goes and goes and goes and is gone.
In the van on the drive here, with my girls in the backseats, we passed the cemetery where my mother and father are buried. Thinking of them, still as stone, their souls flown away forever, my breath, unexpectedly sharp, rushed up and in and out came the tears.
When will this stop surprising me? Life goes. It goes and goes and goes and is gone.
I open up my journal and stop time. I freeze it like a still shot in a movie. And with pen in hand, I walk around as slowly as I want.
This world is a sad and scary place. Everywhere I turn, I see valleys of shadows. People are dying. The suffering is too great. Heartache hovers like smoke. It takes my breath away. It makes me choke.
I pray on the paper. Pour my heart on the page with black ink. I say everything I think and feel. I hand it up to God and say, “This is all I have.” I ask for vision, for mercy, for a way forward.
And then, with the world hung in stillness around me, I walk with God. I walk on past the dark forests of my fears and doubts. I scratch out the what-ifs. Hack them out like diseased trees, felled. I move through the thick wood of bitterness and regret. As we walk and talk, I scribble out every if-only. More dead trees fall. Shafts of light pass through the ceiling and shine like a spotlight on the scenes of my life.
The times I was broken-hearted, disappointed, beat down, disillusioned, done with trying, crying in the dark.
And I see Him there, in my past. In grief and despair, in paralyzing fear, He was there. When I could not see a way to go on, he carried me forward.
Life goes on.
I lie awake, in the middle of the night, questions earth-quaking inside me. And I see Him here, in my present. He wraps His comfort around me like a soft blanket. He holds me like a baby. He rocks me to sleep, and in the morning, the dawn breaks with new mercies.
Life goes on.
And though I cannot yet see the future, I am beginning to see His outline sketched there. Even before the events of my life play out, His presence is already established. He gives me strength to walk forward into a future that is unknown.
Life goes on.
When the light hits my life, I can see it: Here is love. Here is mercy. Here is grace. Here is beauty. Here is Christ.
I close my journal and let time move again. Life goes. And never stops. Not for a moment. It goes but is never truly gone. Not even when the heart stops beating. God is with us. He is the Way and the Truth and the Life. And His Life goes and goes and goes and then goes on.
Sending hope today and prayers that you will find His light and life to lead you forward.
With love,
Mackenzie
From the Family Archive:
Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me…
I love Randy’s version of Psalm 23. (This was recorded in Randy’s Gandalf-beard phase…)
Journal Prompt: Cast Your Cares.
Make a list of all the things that are weighing on your mind. Big or small. Any anxieties or fears, worries, doubts. When you are finished, give them to God. Pray a simple prayer, (“God, I give all of this to you. Help me not to worry anymore, but to cast my cares on you.”) and let them go. Feel free to rip up the page or burn it. This is one of the ways I use my journal to pray.
My Book:
Thank you for being here. It means so much to me.