I broke down after lunch today. I know you were watching. The trickle started with my guilt of lacking warm emotions towards my son and the abundance of impatience in my heart, then surged when fear of my last chemo crashed over me. The future feels so scary, Lord. All my failures, all the time that keeps slipping through my fingers like hot desert sand, new beginnings when I feel like the old ones never came to proper ends.

I can’t believe it’s 2019…I can’t believe we’re here.

You have been so faithful to me, sheltering me with mercy and kindness through the wilderness of 2018. I spent some time yesterday reading through my old blogs from Rwanda and Azerbaijan and was reminded of how your faithfulness is not unfamiliar to me, yet each mercy is new with each day, each trial, each season. You reminded me of how you come in a whisper to the doorstep of my weariness and pain; you reminded me of your unchanging nature—your goodness—throughout every season of this life; you reminded me that it isn’t so much about how quickly I can get to my next destination as it is about choosing the right stops in obedience along the way.

You have been faithful through all my years. You have been unchanging in your patience, your goodness, your mercy, your love. You have never left me; you have not forsaken me. You have shown me more of who you are.

So as I think about these weights that heavily drape my shoulders, I think about these truths and pray that you will grow my strength to be able to lay them down at your feet as I heed your call to come to you in my weariness and seek your rest. Help me trust fully that your yoke is light.

Lord, I trust in you.