“You have not given me into the hands of the enemy

But have set my feet in a spacious place.” (Psalm31:8)

I come to the end of the dock

At the cottage

My favorite spot in my favorite place

To examine the state of my heart

I am bruised

Surprised the purple welts of injury

Don’t show beneath my skin

It has been a hard year

A challenging semester

I have questioned God’s goodness at times

To allow some of the things he allowed

And yet in the clear light of an early morning

At the cottage

I know in my bones He is good

Not just because He rescued me

But because the wrongs that he allowed

Even that was for my good

Nothing ever wasted

I think of my friend with the gift of mercy

A gift I have often coveted but do not have

How deeply she cares for others

For those fortunate enough to be in her sphere

How oddly lacking in defensiveness

She is almost impossible to offend

God himself is rich in mercy

Abounding in love

Slow to anger

And that describes my friend too

I want to be more like her

Which is to say I want to be more like Jesus

But her mercy did not spring up overnight

It came at a cost

She has dealt with illness and fear

Lived with estrangement and death

Many of those things she walked through

Before I ever knew her

Just as what I walked through eight  years ago

Happened before we were friends

That experience left me feeling insecure, rejected

Even worthless

For a long while

Questioning why a good God would have allowed

Injustice to happen

My friend doesn’t waste time asking

Why me?

Instead she seems to say

What next, God?

What are you trying to show me?

Where are you trying to move me?

Oh for a faith

That doesn’t question

The artist who shapes the clay

But willingly submits to the pressure

To the reshaping

God brought so much good through that hard thing

Why would I doubt he can do that again?

Chattanooga has been the best place

For my kids

For Jonathan

And for me

As hard as it was eight years ago

To go “backwards”

It was good

I learned to trust Him in a new place

Learned that hard things do not mean he is against me

Hard things are meant to shape us

If we would but remain soft

In the potter’s hand

Clay to be shaped to His purpose

The only reason we feel sometimes shattered

Is because we are hard, stiff against the reshaping

Wanting to retain our original form

But growth is good

It is necessary

One of the things I saw in hindsight

Was how much more mercy I have than before

I can feel others’ pain

Cry at their tears

More moved to come alongside

And help if I can

As a teacher, I have seen some pretty entitled kids at times

Used to getting everything they want

Expecting the world to go their way

All the time

Could it be that God

Allows hard things to come

To save me from the horror of entitlement?

Is faith that is not tested

Really faith at all?

I want to be kinder

More merciful

Quick to forgive

Slow to anger

Full of grace

But those qualities never just ARE

They are always forged in the fire

Of injustice and struggle and pain

I sit here on my favorite dock

In my favorite place in all the world

Reflecting on these truths

I’ve long understood that what happened

Eight years ago

Was not rejection

It was rescue

When the things I took for granted

Have been stripped away

He sets my feet in a spacious place

This lake is quite literally a spacious place

The water expansive

Before we came this year, the heavy rains

Had caused several pieces of the dock to almost float away

But a caretaker rescued it

Taking down the wood

Leaving just the skeleton

Until the water had receded

I have been underwater

More than once this year

But God

Is faithful

And oh so kind

He held me close

Even when the waters closed over me

He saved the pieces of my heart

So I would have them still

When the waters receded

And now here I sit

Enjoying the cool breeze kissing my skin

The soft hushing sound of the leaves of the cottonwood tree

The lullaby of birdsong

My heart lighter already than it was

Remembering the goodness of God

I do not know what the future holds

But I know the One who holds it

And I know that He is good

As I know

That He wastes nothing

“Be strong and take heart,

All you who hope in the Lord.” (Psalm 31:24)