Valley

The water rushes off the mountain.  The snow that had crested reduced to water.  It pools at the bottom, so many drops now galvanized to puddles and ponds.

The characteristic of a valley, the gathering of water.  It marries other water with little regard to its source or its sorrow.

The valley, it has its purpose and its promise.

Sometimes tears bring clarity.  Clarity of thought, of purpose and pain. The mask we wear has been washed away in the journey. Honesty takes hold.  Our ability to speak and hear sharpened.  There is not filter for formality.  The valley is raw, so are the dwellers.

We see into and not around situations. Our transparency is a beacon and our pain the shared pond of tears.

We are not alone.  The suffering is not the making of misery but the shared hope of the mountaintop where we will stand again.

It is glorious there, but glory is not abandoned in the valley.  The valley has its own glory. We need each other there. We need to know the prayers of many sing to our souls. We pour out and we are refilled.  The character, the strength, the compassion, they fill us.

We fear this.  We run from failure. We avoid loss. But anything lost in the Father’s economy is found.  He does not replace, He redeems.  What was empty fills again in ways we could not imagine and in places we had not foreseen.

It is not easy, nor is it welcome.  Yet, in the loneliness our ears hear His heartbeat.  It ripples the pool of our tears. It is the profound realization that He is better known, greater loved and miraculously present.

“I hear the tumult of the raging seas as your waves and surging tides sweep over me.  But each day the Lord pours his unfailing love upon me and through each night I sing his songs, praying to God who gives me life.” 

Psalm 41:7-8