On this day last year, we were in Scotland and our broken hearts cracked open to release tears and more tears, until they ran clear in healing streams. Those waters flowed freely and wildly to a holy, thin place between the wings of the cherubim. There we stretched out flat on our bellies and wailed, and there we arose broken and limping. Our faces shone of fresh oil and ethereal light, and our voices grew silent.

You don’t have to go to Scotland or find exquisite beauty and holy spaces. My dear friend, Elisa Levine, shared that sometimes during the Israeli war of 2023 the bomb shelter became their family’s thin place, where the veil between God and man was so transparent–His presence so tangible that love and protection oozed through the gossamer threads to shelter against the darkest evil. 

In this life, whether you live or die, a divine dividing line has been drawn to stand against the enemy. It was drawn in blood that soaked the ground – – unjustly spilled for pure redemption and justice. That bloody demarcation cries from the soil of Calvary today and stands forever.

You can press through beyond the holy veil no matter how heavy the trial or desperate the sorrow. 

I have sat in darkness and experienced anguish of soul with a knowledge that the darkness and anguish of others is even greater. How do I bear up? How do we go forward? The weight of the last few years has been piling up month by month—the global insanity and intent to destruction and sheer evil are unconscionable. Man’s war with God rages on in the world and in the church. These last hard-hitting happenings have been so unexpected and strange, and yet my Rock of Ages says, “Think it not strange.” I am seeking words and answers for the past, clues and answers to stand in the present, and solid facts and answers to go forward. Then this morning, while waiting for words and answers this…

“I ended my first book with the words ‘no answer.’ I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice? Only words, words; to be led out to battle against other words.”

C. S. Lewis, “Till We Have Faces”

Someday at the name Jesus every knee will bow and every tongue confess that He alone is Lord. I bow and confess now.

It is not what or who did what yesterday.

It’s what I have done.

Forgive me.

Have mercy. True beauty and redemption are found in the scars of a Savior and a bloody cross. True hope rises from the blood, unjustly spilled, for justice.

“God stretches the northern sky over empty space and hangs the earth on nothing. He wraps the rain in his thick clouds, and the clouds don’t burst with the weight. He covers the face of the moon, shrouding it with his clouds. He created the horizon when he separated the waters: he set the boundary between day and night. The foundations of heaven tremble; they shudder at his rebuke. By his power the sea grew calm. By his skill he crushed the great sea monster. His Spirit made the heavens beautiful, and his power pierced the gliding serpent. These are just the beginning of all that he does, merely a whisper of his power. Who, then, can comprehend the thunder of his power?” Job 26:7-14

The world has wept for years and years without reprieve. We cannot bear the sorrows anymore…shall I name them, one by one…

Now Texas weeps with all the world’s citizens and martyrs. So much blood and death and injustice and ineffable suffering.

In that thin place, sweep past the flickering candles, burning incense, and the brush of angels wings to the wounds of the crucified One. The bruises. The thorny crowned head. Pause to calculate the cost.

Hold me to your bosom until this darkness passes. 

Forgive my sins.

Forgive our sins.

Let me see 

as You see. 

Breathe on me.

Jesus is near. 

-Bonnie Saul Wilks