My Friend

My own words are not equal to the task I am setting them. How can I say with what comfort I now am looking back on this past year? How can I say that none of the disappointments, frustrations, confusions and worries can outweigh the sense of assurance that overwhelmed me this morning?

I was sitting and thinking about the old year, and how badly I want the new one to be different, only somehow, what God spoke into my heart was not a promise about what will happen, but a reminder about what has happened.

I don't need to explain to Jesus what I am feeling now. I don't need to tell Him about the things that have happened, about the mind games that I play with myself, about the feelings that threaten to pull me into a spiral of nothing, away from the work and fellowship that help.

He was there every day, every hour, every minute of this past year. He shared each moment with me, in all its joys, all its hurts, in every up and down, in all the reverses and unexpected things which I hate so much for their very unexpectedness . . . He has walked with me. He knows my heart.

He will walk with me through this next year as He has with the past one.

But now thus says the Lord,

He who created you, O Jacob,

He who formed you, O Israel:

"Fear not, for I have redeemed you;

I have called you by name, you are Mine.

When you pass through the waters, I 

    will be with you;

and through the rivers, they shall

    not overwhelm you;

when you walk through fire you shall

    not be burned,

and the flame shall not consume you.

Isaiah 43:1-2

He was despised and rejected by men;

a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;

and as one from whom men hide their faces

He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.

Surely He has borne our griefs

and carried our sorrows;

yet we esteemed Him stricken,

smitten by God, and afflicted.

Isaiah 53:3-4

O Lord, You have searched me and known me!

You know when I sit down and when I rise up;

You discern my thoughts from afar.

You search out my path and my lying down

and are acquainted with all my ways.

Even before a word is on my tongue,

behold, O Lord, You know it altogether.

You hem me in, behind and before,

and lay Your hand upon me;

it is high; I cannot attain it.

Psalm 139:1-6