I am tired now of the responsibilities. Fatigue comforts my weary bones; 

Too tired to long, too tired to desire,

I rest in the surety of your strength,

Cradled.~Kari Kristina Reeves (From Canyon Road, A Book of Prayers)

The word came to me. Landed softly in my brain. Maybe I needed that little word that meant big, immense. Vast was the word. I hung onto it, and the word led to a memory. A remembrance that emerged as a photograph, like paper sloshed in solution in the sanctuary of a darkroom.

I was five and stood with my father near the edge of the Grand Canyon. He held my hand, but we didn't speak. Just gazed at the grandeur. I remember the "vastness." I didn't have that word in my vocabulary at age five, yet I witnessed the definition. I remembered, too, the feeling of wonder and the feeling that I was the loved child of my father. As a five-year-old, I'm certain that I felt no obligation or duty to make sense of anything other than the moment of love with my dad and the enjoyment of the resplendent view.

Can I do that now?

It's hard. I'm ambivalent about going back to work, fear singeing the edges of my emotions. So many more potential contact points for COVID. And all the supplies I'll need to think about. Disinfecting surfaces. Lysol. Gloves. Masks. All of it seems like too much.

Perhaps I can recall the moment at the Grand Canyon. Can I revel in the closeness and strength of my heavenly father, trusting in the vastness of His love? Can I hide in the expanse of His glory and radiance? Shelter in His rest, knowing that I'm seated with Jesus at the Father's right hand?

My striving only causes burn out.

Let me inhabit the vastness, the surety of His strength. Cradled.