Around the age of eight my voice began to get itself knitted up. By the age of sixteen the jamming had got worse, and my shyness wasn't helping things. What does a parent do? My father said, "All right, let's do it together" and I loved him all the more.~C.R. Milne

I gazed out the window, the rain beginning to speckle the pavement, the sky moody. I turned from the window and felt my dangling silver earrings brush the sides of my face. I'd fastened them on my earlobes that morning as a way to dress up the day. I wondered if that was even possible, the rain now pelting the roof. Thunder bellowing in the distance.

My sleep had been poor of late I'd told my husband. Waking several times in the night, that awkward time in the morning when it's too early to get up, and the mind seems almost too sharp, thoughts scrambling around vying for attention. Then the alarm sounds just as you've drifted off. Not even the sparkly earrings could brighten my face enough to diminish the shadows under my eyes. I'd heard from a number of readers over the last weeks, too, telling me of their skirmishes with life--random accidents that had caused injury and pain, another exhausted from care-giving an elderly parent, job loss, health concerns with family members battling COVID, the enormity of loneliness during quarantine. A hurricane barreling right toward them. My meager problems regarding preparing to retire seemed like nothing. 

Yet I knew that there was a more profitable place to set my thoughts, to unscramble them. I read Psalm 27 and felt comforted by verse 13: I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodess of the Lord in the land of the living.~(From The NKJV). I wrote in my journal after I'd meditated on this verse: I am more and more overwhelmed as I pivot into the expectation of God's goodness--drenched in newfound joy that He honors my preferences and is not confounded by my personality, my weakness. His love so saturated with goodness toward me that His affection brings relief and freedom,no matter the circumstances. Sometimes I become fixated on all I must do before I could actually count on God's goodness, i.e., it's all about my performance. It's all about my circumstances working out before I can focus on the goodness of God and His kindness and faithfulness.

God is not blind to our pain, the worries, concerns and unfair life events. He is a father who reminds us that we are the beloved. That we can come to Him no matter how well or how badly we are doing. It is not about our performance. It is not about our circumstances. It is about turning toward Him and expecting His goodness, His never-changing affection toward us, His desire to help us. To partner with us in full acceptance of who we are.