We Are The Well

I’ve been feeling a lot like a well lately.

The other night I lay wide awake, trying to figure out why sleep wasn’t grasping me as quickly as it always does.

It was either the 10:00 sweet tea, our neighbor’s music, or Jesus. I suspect a combination of all three is likely possible, too.

It was sometime between one and three that I still tossed and turned, wide awake, and began the descent inward, the slow settle down into the darkness, brick walls surrounding.

It’s the deepest I’ve gone in a long while, and I was lost there, searching the cold water for truth.

And I woke up Saturday unsettled, but I felt like I’d been drilled into, built into, swelled up by something.

Or, maybe I was doing the drilling, trying to reach the depths of God as He drew me in.

But I can barely touch His surface.

So I cry out, Help me find You in the deep, quiet, tender, unsearched places.

One day, years ago, we sat in Caleb and Erin’s living room and we plucked guitar strings and bowed our hearts, lifted our eyes up in our favorite way.

All of us there, our vocal chords exercising praise along with every other fiber of who we were, with Aisling rested in her mama’s arms, with teapots and coffee cups, a Christmas tree with lights, and shoes off and peace.

We were reaching there, down into our own deep wells, each of us.

We were searching the cold face of the water for Him, all of Him, any of Him.

Hallelujah, that we barely know all of His mystery.

Hallelujah, that He goes deeper, still.

I drove in the car tonight, and I raised up thanks for so many things I’d forgotten are good.

–and there, He brought me deeper down, just barely sinking my big toe into the water.

And tonight, when the quiet sleep overtakes me, He’ll be there with me, and He’ll be there with you, easing us deeper and deeper down, ever so tenderly, to the places we haven’t even fathomed to be there.

Because He is endless, and He is our endless peace.

Amen.

“Human beings were made for boundless happiness and peace, and when we see that we are starting to move in that direction, we don’t have to push ourselves.” –Thomas Keating