Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort (2 Cor 1:3),
I come before You. I do not bring grand words, for I have them no more. My attention is shattered into fragments. Each fragment belongs to a task, a worry, an expectation of others.
I feel like a space through which everyone passes, yet in which no one remains. Even I do not remain within myself. I have sought solutions in schedules, in work, in flight. Yet I always return to the same point: to the void at my core.
It is not a dramatic void. It is a quiet, draining absence. The absence of my own self.
In this hollowness, I can no longer run. I am forced to stand still and look down, beneath my feet.
Beneath all this turmoil and noise, there is something solid. It is You.
And when I stand still, I do not need my own words to describe You. I use the words that have already been spoken, words that hold true.
You are: “my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold, my refuge, my savior, who saves me from violence.” (2 Samuel 22:3)
A rock is not an idea; it is a reality. Something I can lean on when my legs are weary.
A shield is not a metaphor; it is protection from the voices that tell me I am not enough.
A fortress is a place where I can retreat, so that the demands of the world cannot reach me.
You save me from violence. Not only from great, obvious violence, but from the quiet violence of constant anxiety and the pressure I inflict upon myself.
When I stand upon this rock, fear recedes. It does not vanish in an instant, but it loses its power.
It becomes merely a distant murmur, no longer a roar in my ears.
Then, a new certainty is born within me. It is not my own, but Yours.
“Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid; for the LORD is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.” (Isaiah 12:2)
Trust is no longer an effort. It is simply a state of being that arises from standing on solid ground. The strength of which this verse speaks is not a force for conquering the world. It is the strength that holds me together.
The song is not a melody for others, but an inner rhythm that soothes my heart.
And so it happened. Help arrived. Not as a flash of lightning, but as the quiet realization that I am not alone.
My heart, once clenched in anguish, felt a sense of space. It felt Your help.
The response is spontaneous, unforced. It is simple joy.
“The LORD is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts. I have been helped, and my heart exults, and with my song I give him thanks.” (Psalm 28:7)
This song is no longer something I do. It is something I have become.
This is no longer a prayer for deliverance, but a song of thanks for the deliverance that is already here.
In this simplicity, I have found wholeness. In You, I have found myself. Amen.
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