The Reckoning

I began the year with a friend’s question. She asked me what my one word would be for the coming year. After a bit of thought, I decided on Wonder. Looking forward with wonder at how God will work in my life this year. 

“And amazement seized them all, and they glorified God and were filled with awe, saying, “We have seen extraordinary things today.”

Luke 5:26

I decided to be on the lookout for seize-ures.

I wrote that at the very start of the new year but now as the bleak midwinters deepens, I have been seized by a different sort. A falling away into withdrawal and isolation and the silence it brings as I am overtaken by the toiling fear of last year.

This first reckoning wraps itself around me with its tight impenetrable, implacable bonds.

My heart is full of sorrow and my limbs gather it together in my joints. I am slow to move, to think. I ache with its longing and seek refuge in sleep. As I acquiesce, I begin to understand that it is only time that will ease this river’s relentless current. I need only lie still in His double grip until it runs its course and, at last, vomits me out on riversedge, downstream. It is then, perhaps, that I, sputtering, will discover  the courage it’s passage has wrought within me and allow wonder to begin again. 

Anne

January 13, 2022