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Don’t count on your warhorse to give you victory, for all its strength it cannot save you. — Psalm 33:17
What happens when all your defenses dissolve before your eyes—when they turn out to have the substance of holograms? How are you to proceed?
But first, a poem about monsters…
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One of the ways I proceed after my defenses have given way, is by reaching out to loving friends. On one such occasion I reached out to my sister, a woman who prays and hears from God, asking for encouragement. She was compelled not to tell me about my strengths, but instead to tell me of my need not to be anything — but to belong.
With that perspective, I was reminded of an acquaintance from over a decade ago who said to me, “You know those Scriptures where God calls people ‘beloved’? That’s my calling and purpose in life. My only job is to be loved.” She said this with eyes widening— her entire body seeming to be opened and steadied all at once. I don’t remember her name, but I remember her presence: her soft curls, her fingers open, and palms facing her God.
That’s the image I recall as my sister tells me of my need to know that I belong. There’s a scene where God describes himself as a mother hen shielding her baby chicks from harm. Covering her chicks, she takes the blows of life— be it predators, harsh weather, threats of every kind— upon herself. That’s where I am held. Any pains I feel are the secondary wounds that penetrate God first. Suffering has its limits when you are loved.
Have you found that to be true? I wrote about walking through the Valley of the Shadow of Death and not sitting in it. Today I reflect on it being merely the shadow of death, not death itself. Complete alienation from love is the epitome of death. Anything less can only be the shadow of it.
Here is where my belief that God is love has the greatest significance. I walk through the valley of the shadow of death receiving the world’s blows only through the wings of a God who calls me Beloved and assures me that I belong.
EXTRAS
a book: A Million Miles in a Thousand years by Donald Miller
a song: Tightrope by Jon Guerra
Thank you for being here <3
