Be Gentle with Me

Sometimes my faith feels more delicate than others – I worry for the world my boys will grow into – damaged by war and hate and a disregard for our charge to steward it as those who know how much it delights the God who made it.

When people verbalise their own ‘I’m glad I’m old and I won’t have to live through what’s coming’, I feel a bit damaged.

What I need to hear sometimes are the words of psalms that I come back to again and again,

searing them into my heart like some kind of tattoo

when late night thoughts threaten to turn me from a steady course I whisper them to myself

sometimes through tears

I have lived long in the land but I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread Psalm 37v25

never forsaken

never forsaken

never forsaken

because like I sear these words into my heart I hear this

see I have engraved you on the palms of my hands Isaiah 49v16

I am engraved

and when the world breaks me in ways I cannot even begin to give words to

I don’t need your doomsday prophecy, no I’m not hiding

I’m gentle my faith feels bruised and battered and I need the promise of the prophecy of my saviour a bruised reed he will not break and a smoldering wick he will not put out Isaiah 42v3 and Matt 12v20

what I need to hear from you is “throughout the pain, in the disappointment, in the tragedies that have torn my heart and split me apart I was not forsaken, never forsaken.”.

Let’s be gentle with each others faith when days are dark.

Let us strengthen weary ankles so they don’t turn over and let us revisit again and again the triumphs, the encouragements, the peace, the hope….

and when we falter let’s do what Joshua did for Moses and hold one another’s arms up over the battle.

beautiful reader you are never forsaken throw your hope and anxiety into that – this is the love that cannot and will never be defeated