Jacob was left alone;
and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.
—Genesis 32.24
We trust a dark God
who seizes us in lonely places,
who comes to us in travail,
who births us only in great labor.
Faith is no mere greeting card but a wrestling,
an awful confronting of both doubt and assumption,
a tangling with what is in which neither can prevail.
The Mysterious One uses barred holds,
offers invisible becomings.
There is no struggle in which
blessing is not enfolded in the mystery.
There is no tribulation in which
God is not reworking the clay.
Limping, we become a new person with a new name.
Therefore the prayer of the faithful
is not that things go well,
but always and only this:“I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
July 30, 2020