When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
and through the rivers,
they shall not overwhelm you.
—Isaiah 43.2
For twelve days we pondered the mystery
that the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.
Christ chooses to be with us.
Now another mystery, but the same grace:
Christ is baptized with us,
immersed in holy with-ness.
So when you go through the waters,
Christ is already there.
Breathing life. Enduring. With you.
There is no struggle Christ does not enter,
no suffering Christ does not share.
The Beloved will never forsake you.
In even the worst sin, the most awful depression,
the deepest loneliness, the foulest derangement,
the most shameful death, God is with you.
Every moment of your life
is the stream Jesus was baptized into,
immersed in you, soaked with you.
When you pass through the waters,
and feel no companion, trust:
the Beloved is the water itself, bearing you on.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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