The Joy of God's Knowing

I open the door and step out into the cool fog of encroaching twilight.

My hands hug my pockets; cheeks soak up the damp and turn red.

The last of the November Maple leaves hang like bats from almost-bare branches.

As I walk, in this heaven-mist come to earth, the very large and daunting sum of things recedes. I sense only the very small space around me.

Vapor clouds the city blocks behind and in front of me, cloaking me in a minute portion of world, soothing a soul troubled by aspects of relating to other humans that just don’t come easily.

Closed-in by this comforting dimness, anything seems possible, even the healing of strained relationships, the internalizing of forgiveness and the releasing of regret.

As I pass through dew-point blurred boundaries in soundless stillness, all grows encouragingly small. I shrink.

In the dense condensation of diffused evening, past and future cease entirely to exist. Only the few squares of cement sidewalk, the wet grass along its’ edge, and the damp air blending soul and sky remain.

I look around and up into the ashen formlessness, evaporate into its dewy void.

All that is in and around me now is God alone. We walk down block after ethereal block in silent, yet communicative company.

I savor how easy this is, how untethered and affirming—how very unworldly—to venture with God.

He listens to my spoken muteness; to confessions and praises all coalescing into a surreal peace that only settles in when it’s just God and me. Like this. Alone. Together.

I cry out to Him that I crave this peace at all times and with all people, and yet I fail and sometimes I am the reason and sometimes not...but for now I live loved in this solitude of trust and pray without words...

“I know,” He interjects and reassures. “I know.”

He knows my dread of not always getting it right. Of others not getting it right. Of the world not getting it right. And He knows when others choose to see only this lack in me, and I in them.

But He also knows the times that I do get it right and when others get it right. Even if no one on earth acknowledges it.

He knows it all before I even begin to process it. He is never in a position to not know.

For me, this is joy.

God and I will continue down the path of weathered existence side by side, beyond this moment and toward the hour when the hot exposing sun will return, refracting off the many surfaces of a haphazard life and the individuals in it.

And I will always know that He knows without my ever having to explain.

I cross the street and turn homeward, shrouded in the silver droplets of thick November dusk.

copyright Barb Harwood