Valleys and Rivers

I will sing of your mercy, that leads me through valleys of sorrow, to rivers of joy.

I was aware of my sin before I was aware of grace.  I realized my sin, and my condemnation before love or mercy.  The weight of all that was wrong, that wasn't good in me.  The weight of the joy of my sinfulness; that I liked doing what was contrary to my Maker.

I will sing of your mercy, that leads me through valleys of sorrow, to rivers of joy.

Walking as fast as I could to get outside, running from the walls that felt like prison.  I remember looking up at the cloudless, star-filled sky.  In the vastness, I saw Him, the one who created me, showing me the chains that held me so tightly.  The sins of lust and flesh, the chains of guilt and addiction.  This time, however, I saw more.

I saw hope.  The Maker would make me new again.  The chains could be broken, the sins forgiven and defeated.  I saw grace that night in the southern hills.

I will sing of your mercy, that leads me through valleys of sorrow, to rivers of joy.

The last month has moved slowly.  I mean slow.  Kylie and I make room for a newborn to enter our lives.  Nights are filled with more restlessness than rest.

And again I find myself in the valley of sorrow; my sin bare before me.  My thoughts fill with selfishness, anger, and doubts.

I see in how I treat my dear Kylie that I am not loving; I am not like the graceful Maker on the hillside, filling me with hope as vast as the stars.  I am short-tempered, slothful, arrogant...

Another layer of the sinful man exposed.

I will sing of your mercy, that leads me through valleys of sorrow, to rivers of joy.

I sit with a head in my lap and a computer by my side, and this song comes playing through the buds in my ears.  God's mercy leads us through valleys to rivers; from sorrows to joys.  I have seen errors, and grace did not come later, it was only seen later.

Grace came first, revealing sins, tearing down self-righteousness, then filling with hope in the Maker.

This child will surely be God's mirror more than once for me, revealing those things that I have yet to give into his perfect, loving, artistic hands.

And as those days come, I pray that I can sing of the mercy that leads me through valleys of sorrow to rivers of joy.