He never gave up

I thought it would happen in a moment, an instant, this finding of Jesus, of God.

An event. The day the wandering ended, the climax of the story, the crux, the peg on which I could hang my spiritual hat.

I imagined it happening at the end of a church service, a poignant sermon stomping all over my dress shoes, my icy shell splintering, my steel heart shockingly, suddenly bare, vulnerable.

Perhaps it would come when I closed turned the final page of a book, likely full of theology, telling of practice, even wrapped in story, and it would all make sense and in those words I would find it, peace.

I wondered if it would happen during the Christmas weeks, those days of reverence and beauty, of holy expectation. A candle lit service might hold power where Sunday messages had failed and I would cry warm tears into my folded paper candle cup and I would be new again.

There were those mornings when I woke before the small ones, lit a candle and played quiet piano hymns through speakers, as I was wont to do in days of old. Surely reading more verses, praying more prayers, surely these would hasten the moment.

***

It didn’t happen in a church service.

It didn’t happen when I read a book.

It wasn’t during Advent.

It wasn’t before dawn with a burning candle and quiet hymns.

I found Jesus the day I told Him I didn’t know if I wanted to believe in Him anymore, and was that okay, Lord? Was it okay if I just took a break?

Jesus became real at 2am in the rocking chair, when I cried warm tears with my head in my hands and I begged my God to show me Himself, whispered pleas to be real, be real.

Truth found me in late night talks fueled by red wine, morning conversation over coffee, three hour of writing and editing blogs, and honest confession, sitting cross-legged.

Salvation crept over my soul the day I scrawled fresh words in my journal, that maybe it is all a crutch, maybe I am weak for needing a god, perhaps this God is indeed too high to understand, but that I want a crutch, I am weak and I need a strong God and I don’t even care anymore about anything other than that Jesus, that Father, that Spirit.

Jesus came in the quiet, in the still and the small, and I opened my arms and said, I’m here I’m here I’m here. Take me, take my soul, bind my wandering heart to Thee. Help Thou my unbelief, but I believe

I believe

I believe.