Coffee is gurgling from the corner of my kitchen. I need this cup this morning. Time has slipped through my grasp and I need to stop and breathe today. An overwhelming sigh escapes me. Coffee, Bible and journal in hand, I sit at my kitchen table that has seen many of my tears and fears on numerous ragged, dark early mornings.

As I open my journal, I am guilted by the gap in the dates marked on the top of the pages. Almost two months since the last time I made an effort to seek out God for his guidance. Guidance on my journey as a new mother, a new friend, a loving wife and writer. I found something I was drawn to, led by the Spirit and began a spiraled crawl down my own path. Why is it when God gives me an opportunity to serve him, I find the need to take the opportunity and make it my own? I grab it, dress it up in an outfit I picked out, show it off on the runway of my life and call it my own work? My own doing. By the time I’ve come to the end of myself, I am enveloped by a sickness. God shows me the way to a bountiful path and I stuff my face.

It’s the sickness that usually brings us back.

I fumble with an overwhelming sense of insecurity. What if I made the wrong decision? What if I’m not supposed to be doing this with my life? As I search down the wrong turn I’ve taken, I see others in the distance who appear to be on the same journey as me. They look like they’ve made some similar decisions as me. All I see are their successes.

I start falling. Falling into jealousy. Anger. Fear. A dark pit I can’t see out of. I feel like I’ve reached the bottom and I can’t find my way out. I get kicked around by my emotions. They slither around me, rearing their fangs, ready to bite at my weakest moments.

These are the moments when we’ve come to the end of ourselves that we feel God’s hand holding us. We realize we aren’t in the bottom of a self-destructive pit. We are being held. Held by the One who never let go. God’s love is unconditional and will always be cupping us when we fall. It’s our pride that masks the floor from us. We put ourselves in our own dark places only to find God re-lighting the path for us every time we take a detour. His Word says in Isaiah 41:13 that He is the the Lord our God who takes hold of our hand and says “Do not fear; I will help you.”

I think of the verses we’re taught as children. Verses that become cliches. They get tossed around as platitudes, losing their power in our lives. Until we need His power to rejuvenate us. Until we hear Him whisper the truth to open our eyes and see that He is with us.

I hear him whisper His truth in my dark kitchen that morning.

“Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord our God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” Deuteronomy 31:6

I don’t sit at my kitchen table to feel like I’ve earned points with the man upstairs. I don’t journal about my journey to feel good about myself. I sit down for coffee with the Creator of the universe. I write to clear away the weeds I’ve sown so I can see the beauty He has always had for me. The beauty of His Word. The beauty of seeing others with His eyes. The beauty of seeing myself with His eyes.