A Night Vigil

I was watching intently the news report of the dust storm in Australia. I couldn’t help but feel some kinship with those suffering through the night-like haze that blanketed the Aussie sky. My life has been a bit of a dust storm this week.

As I was groping, not so delicately, with the inevitable transition from mission experience to home our family was blindsided with the tragic accident of my sister-in-law.

Deafening
Blinding
Suffocating
Confusing

In a single breath of a moment, life is blurred beyond recognition. The known becomes the unknown. Naked and empty within this great and deep dark silence, I can do nothing.

A sacred vigil has begun.

In this midnight hour of waiting, I beg for sight to see the purpose; I beg for hearing to find comfort in the spoken word; I beg for wisdom to make decisions beyond myself; I beg for air both cleansing and replenishing to fill my breaths.

I asked not for this pervading darkness but within its murkiness I am not alone. I stand watch with those who find themselves enveloped by circumstance. Together we wait for the dust to settle and the air to clear.

This sacred pause to life will fade as quickly as its darkness fell. I know that. So, within its brevity I surrender only to the trust I have in Him who does not change.

Life will change.
He will not.

My eyes stay open through the watches of the night that I may meditate on your promises.
Psalm 119:148

Update: My husband's sister is still sedated and on a ventilator. They hope that soon they will be able to wean her off the ventilator. The extent of spinal damage remains a mystery but there will be permanent damage. The hope is she will be stable enough medically that next week they can surgically stabilize her cervical spine.

Thank you for your prayers.


© A Sacred Longing 2009