My eyes were leaking the stuff of hard right into that fabric.
The kind of hard that has already become happy and leaks all the heavier.
The way his height and mine match so that my face can bury right beneath his shoulder,
his chin on my head, arms squeezing tight.
This leaning place that will forever be my heart's home on this earth.
He had come straight to me.
Through the back door without stopping to remove his shoes or bag.
Straight to where I was at the counter.
He came to hold and comfort and assure.
To fully know and understand my heart.
To pick up and tend to the pieces of an expectation shattered.
To wrestle alongside me with flat disappointment.
To fight for hope's resuscitation.
His comfort was big and the words gentle.
He was not the first to meet me that way, his tending flowing out of Abba's already-meeting grace.
Where the word and Spirit had been holding, a husband's physical hands and voice followed suit.
There had been another grace too - that of sisters who "sat" in welcoming comprehension without preaching, rather strung together words of hope infused with kindness.
The day had held big effort met with last minute cancellation,
followed by a hard thud of slamming door on possibility strung out.
The old voices of fear, futility, and shame taunted.
Weakness pulled strong in my tired body, mind and soul.
But bigger had been the comfort, and the words gentle.
It was once asked of Job by a friend.
It was asked of me as I poured out my aching disappointment in the middle of that hard day.
On that day where the bright beauty of sun and sky seemed to mock the gray puddle of my heart.
On that day where I pulled in tight to the corner of our couch with my Bible open and read.
Reading and reading, my soul holding tight to His presence with me.
His goodness never failing even in the gray puddle.
His word splayed across my heart, catching the tears
and breathing the life-giving oxygen of hope into my soul's most weary of corners.
When the question hit my eyes.
Words of ink on a paper traveling through the understanding of intellect
to the pounding places of inner heart....
I was undone with comfort.
His comfort of infinite limits and absorbing effectiveness; never too small.
In the face of this bigness, was my aching too small, minuscule...
too much an every-day sort of journey to warrent His attention?
It is in the very smallness of my suffering that His comfort lavishes it's big grace.
The Word, so gentle, it's pervasive comfort cannot fail to reach the smallest of hard corners.
How gently am I dealt with through His Word; the Word which took on this flesh.
To suffer harder disappointment; more gray-puddled days, than I will ever know.
This Word that spoke Himself into the saving of my soul for glory
because He had chosen me before the ages of time.
It's scandalous and outrageous, this grace that floods all corners,
and renews and holds tight.
The smallness of my hard day met with a comfort so big and safe.
He does not call it small.
The silly of my tears was received with Words so gentle.
He does not call them silly.
Kindness and Love Immeasurable once appeared in flesh, always appearing in Spirit-surround.
Washing, renewing, pouring out generously; a once justified, motion of glory-growth in me.
Calling me Heiress of Hope; His heiress of hope eternal!
Today as I rose, my heart and mind rested, my soul fed richly on His word....
I almost wondered at the happiness of spirit and fun joy that I held.
Disappointment still fresh; that slamming door's thud still ringing in my ear.
But stopping short of wondering at, I embraced this grace of His big comfort
and gentle dealings boldly.
Wonder at them, I will not. They are unchanging and ever-present.
Revel in them, I will, and with a confidence unwavering.
Just as I had leaned into those muscular, crisp cotton-clad arms last night,
my soul leans into arms everlasting.
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