I’ll miss this old front porch.  (If I ever actually move from this house.)

Today I’m sitting on this porch and reading these verses in the Bible.

Isaiah 42.  All of it.  But especially verse 16.

 

I will lead the blind by ways they have not known,

along unfamiliar paths

I will guide them;

I will turn the darkness into light before them

and make the rough places smooth.

These are the things I will do;

I will not forsake them.

 

I’m in love with these words.

(Don’t worry Dad, they’re too long for a tattoo.)

They’re words so full of the unknown – like my life.  (Like everyone’s life, I suppose, if you’re brave and wise enough to recognize that.)

But they’re words so simultaneously full of the known,

that God is in control.

The only true Known that carries any weight,

that offers any balance

and all the hope.

I will lead the blind by ways they have not known,

 

I don’t want to be blind,

but I recognize that I am.

I’ve always been blind, in fact, but I’ve certainly spent a large number of decades not understanding or accepting that truth.

I am blind.

But He’s leading me in ways I do not know.

Ways I have never known.

I am blind.

But I have a hand leading me.

along unfamiliar paths

I will guide them;

The unfamiliar paths I am on.

Yes, absolutely.

All.  Unfamiliar.

There is no stump, no bread crumb trail, no outcropping or lone oak tree that I recognize.

Unfamiliar.

Vast and wide.

Both the burned forest

and the new growth.

Unfamiliar.

The sorrow and the surge of hope.

Unfamiliar.

The longing and the peace.

Unfamiliar.

But I have a guide.

One who goes before.

One who goes beside.

And the path promises no familiar markings.

I am neither in charge nor responsible for navigating this unfamiliar path before me.

I don’t have to be.

I will turn the darkness into light before them

The darkness.

It is dark.

Hand not visible in front of your face dark.

Darkness so strong it has a taste.

Darkness

that will be

turned

into

Light.

and make the rough places smooth.

Rough places.

They’ve been my wake and my sleep for three years.

Rough places that I’ve been forced to call home.

And the places that were once sandpaper to the touch,

bed of nails to the back,

will be made smooth.

Rough,

no longer so.

These are the things I will do for you.

I will not forsake you.

These are things:

my blind eyes being lead with my treading feet on paths they’ve never known,

the light breaking forth right out of the darkness,

smooth places where once they were only rough.

These are the things.

These are the things.

I will not be forsaken.

These are the things He will do.

 

 

 

 

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