It's always darkest just before dawn

Before the mountains were brought forth, or the land and earth were born, from age to age you are God. You turn back to dust and say, “Go back, O child of the earth.” For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past and like a watch in the night. You sweep us away like a dream; we fade away suddenly like the grass. In the morning it is green and flourishes; in the evening it is dried up and withered.  Psalm 90:2–6

Yesterday afternoon the family gathered around Mary Anne as she shared some of her thoughts from the past week, as she was preparing for surgery.  One small detail that she offered up was that somehow she feels like prayers during the night watch are somehow more precious to God.

I know that watch.  

That night I had stayed with my father because his nights have been restless.  And I couldn’t really think of how to monitor his wanderings without laying a hand on his arm as I drifted through the hours.  His skin is paper-thin and there is absolutely no flesh protecting the twisting muscle and bone.  It was a quiet night.  The red digital dial clicking away the minutes.  The dark is a blanket settled down gently over.  Nothing to do.  No rushing about.  All is calm.  Holy night.  

This is not the watch when anxieties or should-have-saids keep me tense and tossing.  This is the watch of David with his sheep... scanning for the first hint of dawn, the first moment when the silhouette of a distant mountain range begins to draw lines in the dark.  It is the watch with relinquished control.  Nothing I can do can get that ol’ ball of fire moving one iota faster.  (OK, I KNOW that REALLY our little planet is the one spinning on its axis, hurtling around the sun in a rapidly expanding universe, but REALLY how often do we act on what we KNOW rather than what things look like?)

It was the watch in the waiting room at Tucson Surgery Center yesterday. In the background CNN newscasters searched in vain for new particles of information to share about the movie theatre shooting in Colorado.  Small clumps of families in the other chairs whispered, flipping through messages on their iPhones.  Jack had a stack of 3 x 5 cards of Mary Anne’s Bible verses to guide our prayers.  But really it was a moment of relinquished control.  God had said, “I will be glorified.”  And with that we waited for the dawn.  

And when the doctor entered the room, light on his feet, a broad smile in his eyes, the wait evaporated like a mist.  Like yesterday now that it is past.  A thousand years but a moment and all the wars and rumors of wars and earthquakes and bombings in Bulgaria and Syrian troops clashing with rebels and Jokers with an AR-15 assault rifle and two 40-caliber Glock handgusn and a Remington 8-guage 1270 shotgun will be no more and long nights will disappear and nations will come to His light, and kings to the brightness of His dawn.  

Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” John 8:12