I asked You
where You had gone.
You asked me
why I had stopped looking.
I thought
my pain proved Your absence.
It never did.
The tragedy was not
that my life became hard.
The tragedy was
that I stared at the hardship
until I could no longer see
the One standing beside me.
I counted
the disappointments.
I rehearsed
the failures.
I measured
what had been taken from me.
All the while,
You never took one step away.
You were there
when the doctor spoke.
You were there
when the phone rang.
You were there
when the door closed.
You were there
when I buried dreams
I thought would surely live.
Nothing happened
outside Your presence.
Nothing.
My tears
fell at Your feet.
My questions
rose into Your heart.
My anger
never frightened You.
My silence
never pushed You away.
Looking back,
I cannot remember
one day
You failed me.
I can remember
many days
I failed to see You.
I wanted
an explanation.
You offered
Yourself.
I wanted
the pain removed.
You chose
to walk through it with me.
I called that
disappointment.
Now I call it
love.
The deepest wound
was never the sorrow.
It was living
as though I were alone
when the Son of God
was walking every step beside me.
Lord Jesus,
Teach me
to look for You
before I look at my circumstances.
Teach me
to hear Your voice
before I listen to my fears.
Teach me
to measure every sorrow
by Your presence
instead of measuring
Your presence
by my sorrow.
If You are with me,
then nothing—
not grief,
not failure,
not loneliness,
not tomorrow—
can ever tell me the truth
about my life.
Only You can.
And when this journey ends,
I think
my greatest surprise
will not be
how often You came.
It will be
how often
You were already there.