Have you ever experienced a sudden insight or experience of God’s transformative grace when you were in a dark place?
If so, what aspects of God’s character did you experience?

Traveling far away to honor our parents
To spend quality time of joy and celebration
And not come together when it feels too late for fun or connection

I have been hunted by the reality of our mortality and how short life is
And in our pursuit to seaze the day, we earn one more core memory one more fun adventure

And yet

I dread dependency on others.
Things were not what I expected
Are they ever?
After two years of not seeing the extended family

We went along with the ebb and flow of reconnection
And I was relearning to let my husband take the lead
In his own world, language, family.
And then he got sick. With Covid.
He isolated from everyone.
I was his contact person. Not yet sick. But wearing a mask, because I had been fully exposed to his germs for over 24 hours sharing a room, a bed.
I slept two night outside our room. On a couch. At loose ends.
The last night out there, outside the quarantine holding my breath
The liminal space of sickness
and struggling to breath for real soon after,
I felt utterly alone.
I realized how lonely I am
Dependent. And codependency as a slide in my in laws house.
Unfamiliar feeling.
Necessary in this season, to remember that I’m not on my own.

I longed to spread my wings and start fresh
Thinking I can make due
That my husband doesn’t know or doesn’t understand a lot of me

But tables had turned
After a season of joining the quarantine
Slipping into the darkness to emerge from it with renewed perspective.

There is beauty in imposed separation
And rebirth

When I was all alone,
I slowed down to pray
Like I hasn’t had time or focus this whole year
I’m aching and struggling to breathe
I still had a corner of a soft enough couch
To meditate that whole long night
With the moon shining through the oak tree
I thought of Sabina and Richard Wurmbrand
In isolation, in prison
Having communion with God
And I felt God present too
Not shying away from my physical aches
As well as my heart aches and sadness and disappointment
Meditating on His Word, whatever I had filled my mind with this last year
On that couch in the night
With foggy sight
And runny nose
I could only draw from memory.
In a state of haze of reverie
Those days of Covid seemed endless and yet they were only 5 days
The crossing into the new year
A short yet important week
A transition into newness

If I ever feel He is absent or Indiferent
It’s because I don’t look to truly see
Occasionally he stops me in my tracks to show me
That I can rest and reset
That He is present
And I couldn’t hide from him
Even if I tried to run away
Traveling to the end of the world.