A Thank Offering

Sacrifice thank offerings to God,
fulfill your vows to the Most High,
and call on me in the day of trouble;
I will deliver you, and you will honor me. (Psalm 50:14-15)

He has promised to come in response to my call, but time goes on, and I am shaken in the silence. Round and round the questions go... Have I been mistaken?

No. I know whom I have believed.

Then why this emptiness, this silence? 

I don't know. I don't know.

Has He failed to keep His promise? 

I feel just now that His grace is not, after all, sufficient. My heart sinks when I call and hear no answer, know no comfort, feel no steadying hand. And yet I know, more assuredly than I know anything that I can see or touch or even understand - know beyond all doubt - that my Father cannot lie. He cannot.

It seems so impossible, so incomprehensible, so incongruent. How to reconcile the reality I know and the reality I experience?

Once before has God withdrawn Himself. I remember His silence; His absence. It destroyed and re-made me. I trace the pattern of it in my mind, and I am reminded that it was not random. He did not turn His back on me. He did not forget. His leaving was for a limited time, and it was for a specific purpose.

This void, too, has borders. It has meaning. Where? How? Why? I don't know.

I will call on Him. He will deliver me, and I will honour him.

Father, this is my thank offering to You. Here I am. I give my heart, my hope. I will lay the truth of my questioning and my hurt here beside the incontrovertibility of You who are Merciful and True. Thank You for everything I cannot feel thankful for just now. Someday I will say it with better understanding, but not with more sincerity. Let me honour You a little now, before You deliver me.