THE BOOK

(I DIDN'T KNOW I WAS LOOKING FOR)

365 Days of Thanksliving — Day 150

For years, I’ve searched for a book I know I once owned. I must still have it, I tell myself. Is it tucked away in a dusty box in the garage? Is it hiding in plain sight on a shelf, eluding my aging eyes? I’ve even forgotten the title, yet the weight of its message remains etched in my mind.

Continuing the internal dialogue regarding yesterday’s theological conundrum, I found myself searching for that elusive volume once again. In what quickly became a lesson in futility, I pulled a chair up to my office bookshelf and began the hunt. I spent an hour pulling down book after book, peering into the pages, hoping to find my "missing" treasure. A hundred books later—nothing. I’ll likely find it someday when I’m not looking; that is usually how grace and lost items work.

What I did find, however, were three journals I had completely forgotten. The oldest dated back to 2005 at the start of my seminary studies; the second from ten years later; and the third from the "afterward"—the season after my ministry at St. Paul’s Maumee went nuclear. I was in a dark, low valley then. It was that final journal that stopped my breath.

Friday, Feb 17, 2017

Lord, my soul feels conflicted — Oh, how I love you. Oh, how I love to praise you. Oh, how I have trusted you for everything — yet I feel alone. I feel as though you have abandoned us.

I long to hear from you again. I long for intimacy and communion with you.

Why are you silent, Lord? My heart is broken.

Restore me, O God. Restore me, I plead.

Lord, I will continue to sing of your goodness.

How much longer, O Lord, will the vultures circle around me? How much longer will the wolves be at my door?

Lord, restore! Lord, restore!

Be glorified, Lord. Be glorified.

My soul will still praise you. My souls says, I am well with you.

Father, I will look onto the horizon—I will look on the waters for your promised restoration. “It will be better than before,” I declare. “My influence, for your namesake, will increase. All that has been stolen will flow in.”

My soul praises you, O God. My soul praises you.

Now, standing on the ground of the "fully restored," I look back at that lament. I remember that day as though it were yesterday—penned during a praise and prayer retreat with friends, my journal balanced on my knee. One minute I was lost in worship; the next, I was desperately scribbling the cries of my heart. Yet, the pain I felt then is now a distant memory. The sting is dead; the wound has become a scar that tells a story of healing.

Perhaps this journal was the "book" I actually needed to find. I needed to read it to remember, and to recall the unwavering goodness of our God. He hears our prayers. He catches our cries and laments—the gut-wrenching travails of our souls. He doesn't turn a deaf ear; He responds in love, moving in the perfect timing that only He knows.

Today, I find myself praising the Lord again for His goodness and the restoration He has so faithfully delivered.

What dusty memory might God have you recall today, so that you, too, can praise and thank Him for how far you’ve come?