This Very Present Darkness

These days, I have said to friends, depression is knocking at my door, and I am fearful, though I have been told I need not, and must not, be dismayed.

It crouches at my door. I must not be mastered by it.

Some days I am inexplicably (with reference to my current circumstances) sad and disembodied. This gloomy cloud follows me.

These days, I miss her. She understood. But I don't just miss her understanding; I don't just miss being understood. I miss her. I feel her absence without jumping to fill it for someone else for the first time since that initial sorrow. I think of how a year ago around now, we were planning for our weekend in Princeton.

Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it (Hebrews 2:1). Do not neglect your great salvation, Esther. You have a Savior!

So having put on the full armor, is our only marching order to stand firm? Will Papa really fight on our behalves?

Arm ourselves for the darkness at hand, we must.

Because the fog--It obscures the truth that He already has championed us. And He's irrevocably won.

I pray that mercy would root my heart and mind deeply in the gospel. And that the light of this victory would resight my blind fumbling aim and distorted vision.

I must see You, Jesus. Please open my eyes and fix them on You or I shall certainly get lost in the ambiguities.

A deep fog stalks me. But another cloud goes before. By day. By night (Exodus 13:21). It shepherds me along the Way.

Even those sheep who stray into rabbit trails are not lost to You.

Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand.

You guide me with your counsel, and afterward...

You will receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but You?

And there is nothing on earth that I desire--besides You.

My flesh and my heart do fail.

But God is the strength of my heart and my portion. Forever.

swing Your robe down low

my words fall to the floor
as tears drip through the telephone line

the hands i've seen raised to the sky
are not waving but drowning all this time

i'll try to build an ark that they need
to float to You upon the crystal sea

give me Your hand to hold
cause i can't stand to love alone
& love alone is not enough to hold us up
we've gotta touch Your robe

the prince of despair's been beaten
but the loser still fights

& everyone cries for the innocent
You say to love the guilty ones too

surrounded by suffering and sickness
i'll be working tearing back the roof

the pain is a burden
& it's my cross to bear
 i stumble under all the weight

i know You're simon standing there

& i know You're standing there

so swing Your robe down low

love alone // caedmon's call