God is good and He can make all things beautiful. To some, SIP for months might have sounded like a death sentence.. It is whispering in my heart, “The darkness will always be there,” But God told me to stop fighting it and trying to fix it myself.

Aloneness

Isolation

Forgotten

Irritability

Anger

The darkness exists. It’s okay that it’s there and it’s okay that it’s hard. It’s okay to face bravely into it, to let go of denial and learn to live with it.

The second half of that whisper was sweet. “I will always be with you in the darkness.” and He’s not tapping his foot and looking at his watch, impatient with me to get it together. He sits with me in the darkness.

I remembered a favorite verse from Psalm 139: if I make my bed in hell, you’re there.

Those words released so much guilt and fear. They pledged that I’m not so profoundly screwed up that the God of the universe would ever back away. He isn’t afraid of my doubts. He doesn’t shrink from the darkness.God doesn’t lose patience with my pain. He isn’t uncomfortable when I share dark thoughts, telling me to snap out of it. Nothing I can do, nowhere I can go will ever push Him to abandon me. Instead, God welcomes honesty. He runs toward my pain and questions.

”Okay. If you promise to never leave, I can walk through anything with you.”

Sometimes God doesn’t heal, and it’s not anyone’s fault. Sometimes sickness is just the ugly reality of living in a broken world. My hope can’t rest solely on the miraculous or a mystery I can’t comprehend. I don’t have to be healed to trust Him. My hope rests on His character, who He’s proven Himself to be time and again.

It takes more faith to believe he’s good and kind and present when he walks through darkness with us instead of plucking us from it.

I’ve learned to cling to the Lord come hell or high water, and they both surely will rush in. I know to press my face into His clothes and breathe in deep. When I’m terrified or filled with doubts and my mind feels the burn of depression, I lean into Him and listen.

“It’s okay. I’m still here, even in the darkness.”

And, much as I would love Him to wave His magic wand and put my soul back together without cracks and scars, I am grateful. I know the Comforter because I have been comforted. I know a God who sees me and is present with me. He’s proven it by showing up in my car when I needed Him most.

Maybe today, you’re wondering if God is present in your loneliness and doubt. we all come face-to-face with these big questions. Are you here? Are you with me?

In the midst of anguish and ache, He is not disappointed or impatient with you. And, though he often doesn’t bring a sudden change of circumstance, he’s sitting with you in your pain.

God is with us. He isn’t leaving. He isn’t giving up.

I recently received a text message from a friend. It’s was all I needed to know God was watching me. Sometimes when you are in a dark place, you think you have been buried. But actually you have been planted

If the darkness will always be here, so will God. He’ll sit in its midst with us, holding our sometimes-desperate, flailing hearts. We won’t be alone. Maybe that’s all we need to know to get through.