To Walk Right Through It

I wake this morning in the still dark hours and breathe deeply, in and out. Deep breaths are a luxury I have found in cities stationed a mile high. Everyone said they would come and this morning they finally did. I have rarely thought to thank God for my physical breath, the act of inhaling and exhaling, but since moving here I do. Before we came here we went on a weekend trip to Austin with two friends. In the car they told us of the steps involved in healthy transition. I think grief was in there somewhere, and ethnocentrism, perhaps there was also difficulty breathing, but I can't remember.

Something akin to fog was in there though and sometimes the fog is so thick in this season I can't see a way around it. I work every muscle to remember names and stories and people and faces, to be faithful with the task in front of me, to remember the time for writing will come again eventually, just not today. Everyone knows the thing about fog is you must just go right through it. You dim your headlights, trust the road ahead, move slowly, and go.

I read Psalm 91 today:

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”

The shadow of the Almighty is still a shadow, I think to myself, and shadows are something akin to fog. I think of how the Israelites were led by a cloud and Elijah prayed for one and how God created all of them. Shadows don't feel like walking in the light, but they are still evidence of light, and this I remind myself daily these weeks and months. There is a stayed joy and faith in me, a steady, calm peace pulsating through me. We have not taken wrong steps or made poor decisions, but even good steps take work and wise decisions take time, and sometimes the fog must be waded through.

We lay there in the dark this morning and he knows I am thinking hard, "What's on your mind?" he asks, and I can't answer. Too many of these days feel like too much. We wonder aloud together if the fog will lift and when and how. The truth is we have no promise that it will, but we do have a cloud to lead us, and the shadow that falls from it, and we are sheltered in the midst of it, and He is faithful and kind and good.