As a father steals into his child’s half-lit bedroom slowly, quietly, standing long and long counting the breaths before finally slipping back out, taking care not to wake her, and as that night-lit child is fully awake the whole time, with closed eyes, measured breathing, savoring a delicious blessing she couldn’t name but will remember her whole life, how often we feel we’re being watched over, or that we’re secretly looking in on the ones we love, even when they are far away, or even as they are lost in the sleep no one wakes from—what we know and what we feel can fully coincide, like love and worry, like taking care in full silence and secrecy, like darkness and light together. ~David Graham “Listening for Your Name“

² “How I long for the months gone by,
    for the days when God watched over me,
³ when his lamp shone on my head
    and by his light I walked through darkness!
Job 29:2-3

Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.
~Mary Oliver, “The Uses of Sorrow”

The season of Lent
is a box full of darkness
given to us by Someone who loves us
enough to watch over us even as we sleep.

The Light is already here
but the darkness has not yet dissipated.

It takes a lifetime to understand,
if we ever do:
we are watched over
as we watch over one another.

By opening the gift of darkness,
we allow a Light in
where none was before.

Light pours through the cracks
of our sorrow and brokenness
as we are watched with care,
as we illuminate amid the shadows,
as we are loved with the deepest of concern.

This year’s Lenten theme for Barnstorming:

God sees us as we are,
loves us as we are,
and accepts us as we are.
But by His grace,
He does not leave us where we are.
~Tim Keller

Another sleepless night
I’m turning in my bed
Long before the red sun rises
In these early hours
I’m falling again
Into the river of my worries
When the river runs away
I find a shelter in your name

Jesus, only light on the shore
Only hope in the storm
Jesus, let me fly to your side
There I would hide, Jesus

Hear my anxious prayer
The beating of my heart
The pulse and the measure of my unbelief
Speak your words to me
Before I come apart
Help me believe in what I cannot see
Before the river runs away
I will call upon your name

Jesus, only light on the shore
Only hope in the storm
Jesus, let me fly to your side
There I would hide, Jesus
~Elaine Rubenstein, Fernando Ortega