Maybe God Is Actually With Us

“The blood in your veins
Demands a new way
The muscles conform
To bring reform
Every cell cries out for a new king
Every note begs for a different melody”

Sometimes you come to a place in life where things are no longer allowed to be the same. You cannot go back to how something was, you cannot un-know something, and you cannot ‘get back to normal.’ You are forced to do or be or experience something new whether you consented to it or not.

There is suddenly a demand that life cannot go on as it had been. You can’t keep doing what you’re doing or thinking the way that you think. It’s not just that it doesn’t work anymore; it’s actually not possible. Your brain must now rewrite things and reimagine life. You have to grieve something that you didn’t know was a thing to grieve because it never crossed your mind it would ever need to be grieved.

But there you are. Something is lost and now you have to find a new way.

What’s strange is that this new way eventually starts to involve new things that you are grateful for. And you tense at the thought of thankfulness because it’s in the face of great loss and so you don’t want to entertain it. It’s not fair to what you have lost. But you can’t ignore that good things are in your life. Good things that you couldn’t have dreamt up because there was no grid for it.

And again, tension. Because how can I celebrate the good things when I still hold such a sadness or a pain? But you keep going because what else are you supposed to do?

You wake up each day, receive the new mercy, receive the Daily Bread, and stay present in that day as much as you can. Thinking of the future is too overwhelming and impossible, so the only option is to be present.

Priorities become clear and things may start exiting your plate. More room is given to some things and other things do not make the cut. Taking care of yourself becomes an actual gritty, believable thing instead of a new age, floaty, inspirational thing. The things you say ‘no’ and ‘yes’ to may surprise you.

More gratitude becomes available in the face of despair. Not in the absence of it or in the solving of life circumstances. No, gratitude actually grows bigger inside of you in the middle of things still being terrible. And even though that is confusing, it creates this new capacity in you to be grounded in joy and able to genuinely suffer.

And, little by slowly (as BreakAwake with Nicole Sachs likes to say), you are making it. You are seeing shifts. You feel differently. You notice places that have been healed. You get to know your voice and preference and need in a new way. All of these really amazing things start to come and they are only available gifts to you because you walked through the dark valley.

It doesn’t mean you won’t find yourself in another dark valley. But it does mean that because you’ve seen the other side of a handful of dark valleys, you start to consider trusting that the other sides might just keep coming. Maybe God is actually with us.

A different melody is possible, but it will come with some dicing up of the old one. Not because it wasn’t also beautiful, but because God is creating depth and complexity in your story and in your inner being that begs for a new melody to be written. It can no longer be contained. A new piece of music is being composed, and you — your body, your mind, your heart, your story — are the masterpiece.