I walked into the office yesterday, my least favorite day of the week, and had to admit that things had not gotten off to a good start. Two hurried trips up and down the stairs at home to retrieve forgotten items, cursing under my breath, yelling frustration at myself. But it’s always what’s underneath the anger that undoes us, that leads us to break down or cover up, toward confession or hiding. I steeled myself against the rest of the day until I got the text from The Husband: don’t worry…His timing…out of your hands. And just like that, I was undone. In the best way. Reminded how known I am, how found. And by not just him. I released my grip.

Because the thing that is underneath the blustering anger is always fear. And the more I walk with Him, the more I am confronted with the ugly fears that I somehow never completely stopped believing, that still haunt me when my faith takes a nosedive and I forget His record, my story. The fear that I am irretrievably broken; that I will pay in punishment for my past indiscretions (and dear God, isn’t that a cleaned-up way to refer to that mess); that the bottom will shortly be falling out from under me. Life in all its imperfection has a way of revealing the holes in my faith, of pointing out all the places where I still don’t believe He’s good. Of making me think that I’ve figured something out in those moments, rather than the truth that my heart still makes hidden deals with the enemy.

Disappointment, hurt, brokenness–these will remain battlegrounds all my life.

And then I remember what I heard and read, that it’s not the strength of my faith but the strength of its object. The limb doesn’t assess my record when I grab onto it because it already assessed His–and it held. It will always hold, and that has absolutely nothing to do with how I feel at any given moment. My heart has been known to lie to me before. I will cast my eyes on something bigger, truer. More faithful.

I forced TH to go on a walk with me last night and he went, even though he thinks it’s kind of girly to walk (it is), because he loves me so well. And this loop around the neighborhood that I had designed in an effort to give us time to talk, to de-stress, to just be with each other–I began to make it anything but that. I pulled his hand, saying, “Let’s go faster! Get our heart rates up!” I set my eyes on the hill ahead and plotted our course. Then, the overwhelming smell of honeysuckle and flowers and cut grass–life growing. And TH’s slowed step, his look around at the green by which we were surrounded, his quiet beholding. And I remembered another course I had plotted, and it hadn’t included any of this. In all my planning, I hadn’t conceived this beauty. I stopped pulling, and I beheld.

By grace I am reminded of bridges I have crossed, of how they have held. I read, and know it is true because it is my story, that “trust is the bridge from yesterday to tomorrow, built with planks of thanks.” And what of the connection between thanks and trust, the holding of it all together? I know who supplied those nails.

I am being asked always to consider the possibility of paradox, the idea that things are not what they seem–that they are more. And I open my heart to the thought that what looks like disappointment to me could be Him keeping a promise. And this, this daily walk with Him, I have been trying to direct it my whole life, pulling Him in all directions. Slow down, hurry up. And now I stop pulling and I behold. The hand that covers mine is callused and rough where mine is soft. It is scarred where mine is whole.

I stop pulling, and I walk beside Him.