The God Who Is

As most of you know, a friend of mine was killed in a car accident nearly 6 months ago. In the wake of my friend's death, I have found my faith and my relationship with God challenged beyond anything I have ever experienced. I stopped talking to God for 5 months. I screamed and cried and slammed the door in His face, but there were no conversations. I stopped believing He was listening. I stopped believing that it mattered. It has been an agonizing life-altering road, but finally there are glimmers of hope seeping into the blackness of my grief. A few weeks ago, I spoke to God for the first time in many months. And out of that conversation came this poem:

Revelation

The silence closes in,

And I wonder if You are still listening.

There is no whisper of Your presence,

And I wonder if You are even here.

Do You love me less

Because my doubts are so big

And my faith so small?

Do You ever grow tired

Of waiting for me to understand,

To believe, to move forward?

I feel farther from You than I have ever been,

Weighed down by the enormity of who You are

And the mystery of Your workings.

The many things I once believed

No longer seem clear to me.

But there is one thing I have no need to question,

One thing that breathes hope into this night:

In all of my life,

You have never failed to redeem my brokenness

And turn the ashes of my suffering

Into the beauty of Your glory.

I am certain this time will be no different.

Though I stand here now,

Full of doubt and disappointment,

It is with great anticipation

That I await the revelation of Your glory.

Indeed, I am waiting for the day when my questions will be silenced in the face of a God whose goodness is never absent from my life, whose mercy is without equal, and whose love reaches the darkest corners of my soul. Not the God I thought He was or even the God I want Him to be, but the God who IS.