Though I walk through the valley, it's only a shadow...

God is good. The words of saints, ancient and new born ring loud in my spirit. In the face of tragedy and triumph the words that should resound from burning hearts should be as such. To cry the phrase of Job, or even David. God is good. 

My heart is learning lessons hard this past week as beloved sister passes from earth into eternity. Grace isn't walking faithfully through death and loss, grace is saying at the end of the beginning without her... God is good. To cry from broken heart, "though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me..." The truest test of grace in the midst of losing is this, I am not offended, I choose to worship. 

Tomorrow is this wild girl's birthday and I can only imagine that she would have approached 26 with the same wide eyes as she viewed all of life. It seems as though her common theme of life was how she could love to the full. I can only put imagination to flight now as she is before the God of eternity learning the true fullness of the heavy love, the Agape Himself. And here I know the meaning of the words that man wrote to a tune we all know; bending beneath the weight of Your wind and mercy. How He loves! 

I cannot say with all certainty the thoughts that ran through sweet one's mind as she saw Him for the first time, but I can only imagine that at that moment it was Love. The heart aching, worth writing a million songs for LOVE! The tree bending, ocean rising, mountain dividing love! My heart is not certain of much in trying times, but I am certain of this. She knows love. 

And now I need to know Love. I am learning how to survive without knowing for certain how the Unknown chooses to work. My finite mind says how unfair, and my heart cries pain. But I choose to worship, I choose to praise! Though You slay me, still I choose to worship! My heart aches as I try to comprehend how my earthly second papa might feel right now, and I can see his life as it aligns with parts of a story that I am familiar with, and I heard him utter the words of that man Job. Certainly God's hand is in this! He speaks with wavering tones as tears streak his fatherly form. This man is broken, but there is One who identifies with his brokenness. The man of sorrows, aquatinted with grief! 

Jesus...

So we lean. In misunderstanding, in grief... we lean! And my heart finds solace in the words of C.S. Lewis "I believe in God as I believe in the sun, not because I see it, but because by it I see everything." With unveiled face I see Him, and I lean into the invisible, ever present God who identifies with my pain.

I find peace.