26 to 26: God is in the tremors

Ann Voskamp has been speaking Truth into my life, through her book One Thousand Gifts, for the last three years. I’ve read it and reread it and reread it again. Each time I work through it, whether with my small group or on my own, I am struck by different parts of the text, different principles.

This felt close last I read. I need this Truth in my heart and my flesh and my bones.

‘When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand util I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back’ — (Exodus 33:22-23)

“Is that it? When it gets dark, it’s only because God has tucked me in a cleft of the rock and covered me, protected, with His hand? In the pitch, I feel like I’m falling, sense the bridge giving way, God long absent. In the dark, the bridge and my world shakes, cracking dreams. But maybe this is true reality: It is in the dark that God is passing by. The bridge and our lives shake not because God has abandoned, but the exact opposite: God is passing by. God is in the tremors. Dark is the holiest round, the glory passing by. In the blackest, God is closest, at work, forging His perfect and right will Though it is black and w can’t see and our world seems to be free-falling and we feel utterly alone, Christ is most present to us, I-beam supporting in earthquake. Then He will remove His hand. Then we will look. Then we will look back and see His back.” –Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts, p 156