Lately I’ve felt unearthed. Squeezed tight and pulled from my grounding. Quickly yet quietly removed from my community.

I’ve had voices telling me that I can’t believe what I believe and still be a true believer. I’ve had people I respect telling me I can no longer serve if we don’t see eye to eye. I’ve had loved ones imply with painful silence that I can’t truly love One while accepting the other…

This new, unexpected reality has left me reeling. How can it be so easy to see and to love someone exactly the way they were created to be, yet at the same time so heartbreakingly difficult to reconcile the voices swirling around that see it all so very differently?

I’ve heard so many songs lately about finding hope in the dark places, but where is the true dark when I see it one way and you see it another? When what brings one person joy is the very thing that causes another to grieve? Where is the true hope when it’s the believers that seem to be causing the most harm to the marginalized? Where is God?

The warm breeze yesterday was such balm for my weary spirit. I opened one of our windows, curled up on the couch and just sat there, breathing it in; watching the sun set behind the pines… the slow descent. The gentle softening of the day. The quiet. The warmth. And as night descended, I found my way outside to be enfolded in it; the clear dark skies enveloping all of me with its saturated quiet and its sprinkling of stars. I laid my head back and looked up, drawing lines between the heavenly bodies, wondering where my faith was to be found in all of this loss; all of this unearthing. And then the bells began playing from somewhere in Churchtown, a delicate shattering of the deep silence. Praise to the Lord, the Almighty. It was brief, almost distant. Once through, on the hour. I tried to remember the words I had learned as a child…But will it even matter? I feel stranded now in this endless desert; uprooted, wandering…faithless? But then the words ignite recognition, awaken the hope I thought was gone: “Ponder anew what the Almighty can do.” Oh those sweet bells. So brief. So life-giving. Creator reaching down and reminding me that I haven’t been forgotten. My family hasn’t been abandoned. My sweet children are seen and loved exactly as they are, precisely at this moment. Ponder ANEW what the Almighty can do. The Almighty. The Reconciler. Teacher. Outcast. Crucified.…Oh to breathe deep of this reminder that I am seen and cared for even here, when I can no longer reconcile what I was taught as a child with what I know in my heart.

As the chill begins to settle on the night air, I know I must wait for reconciliation. It may not come tomorrow, or even in the brief while that I have breath in my lungs, but I will do the work. I will begin the painful silencing of the voices that deepen any despair in my spirit, and searching instead for the hope that Ubangiji whispers in my ear. Behold, He is doing a new thing. Do you not perceive it?