All is Well

I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten… And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied. ~ Joel 2:25-26

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My oldest daughter, Keli, just turned 33.

Thirty-three. I am having a hard time believing it, if I’m honest. It feels like only a handful of years ago that she was a little girl in my kitchen, and now she is a wife and a mother of two boys of her own, building a life I could not have imagined for her back when everything fell apart.

Because it did fall apart, once. Keli was in high school when her father — a youth minister at the time — went to prison for horrific crimes. Our lives were thrown into chaos overnight. I went from one job to two, to three, just trying to keep our heads above water, and my four kids pretty much had to fend for themselves in a season that asked far more of them than any child should have to give.

I think about that season often. I think about what it does to a young girl’s soul to watch her whole world reorder itself around scandal and shame and grief, all while she is still trying to figure out who she is.

But God.

A Little Girl, Horse Crazy

Keli has loved horses since she was tiny. Horse crazy, through and through — she comes by it honestly, because I was every bit as horse crazy at her age. I saved up my own money for Breyer horses when I was a girl, and of course, those same model horses eventually made their way into Keli’s hands, one generation passing its love down to the next.

I will never forget her fifth birthday party. I had arranged for a real horse to come and give rides to the kids, and when that horse arrived in our yard, the look on Keli’s face was somewhere between disbelief and pure joy. She cried happy tears. A five-year-old, undone by the sight of a horse in her own backyard. I don’t think I will ever forget it.

That love never left her. Not once.

Grief, and a Barn Down the Street

When everything with her dad happened, Keli was a teenager — old enough to understand the weight of it, too young to have any real say in how to carry it. A family down the street from us kept a few horses, and Keli started spending hours there, simply loving on them and feeding them. That wasn’t enough for her, though. She went, quite literally, door to door to nearby homes with horses, asking if she could volunteer to help care for them. Eventually those connections led her to a horse rescue farm 2.5 hours away! She would get up at 5:00am to make sure she was there in time for morning chores. I didn’t even realize that until recently; it makes me tear up to think of my girl, up way before dawn, to be with horses who needed the love and care should could give.

I understand now, looking back, that this wasn’t only a hobby for her. It was a sanctuary. It was a safe place to grieve without having to explain herself, and a place that still demanded she keep moving forward — because there was work to do. Horses to groom. Stalls to muck. Feed to carry. Grief has to go somewhere, and for my girl, it went into loving these animals who asked nothing of her except her presence and her care.

A Hobby Farm, Two Boys, and Mill Swamp

Fast forward to today, and Keli is a young mom raising my two grandsons on a hobby farm, teaching them to love the outdoors — bugs, mud, frogs, and all the things little boys are supposed to love. It is a beautiful life, and watching her build it has been one of the great joys of these recent years.

And then — right down the road from their little farm — is Mill Swamp, a program run by a retired prosecuting attorney that focuses on regenerative land management and the preservation of Spanish Colonial horse breeds like the Choctaw, Marshy Tack, and Grand Canyon. Mill Swamp works to keep alive some of the oldest and rarest bloodlines of horses in America – horses whose ancestors arrived in this country before the English ever set foot in Jamestown.

God could not have written a more fitting scene if He tried. Keli has jumped into Mill Swamp with everything she has.

Layla

Through a series of doors that only God could have opened, Keli and her family now have not one, but two horses of their own. But it’s Layla, their Choctaw filly, that I want to tell you about today.

I wish you could see the two of them together. Layla knows exactly who her person is. She recognizes Keli’s car pulling in. She comes looking for ear rubs and feed the moment she sees her. And she is remarkably gentle with my grandsons, ages almost four and five – typical little boys who want to love all over her — and she simply lets them.

I keep coming back to this: God delights in giving good gifts to His children. He is not a Santa Claus, and I don’t ever want to reduce Him to one, or reduce prayer to a wish list. But that truth doesn’t erase the other truth that God cares about the desires written into our souls. He looked at my girl, who has known real sorrow and real grief and real hurt, and who has loved His creation — horses, in particular — with her whole heart since she could walk, and He delighted in clearing a path for her.

A few weeks ago, Keli said something to me I haven’t been able to shake: “I have everything I need in life. I have my family, my home, my horses, and my faith.”

But God

Things could have gone so differently for her. They really could have. The trauma of those years could have easily wrecked her — I have seen it wreck others. But our God is faithful and just and sovereign, and He saw the pain, heard the cries, and has healed far beyond anything we could have imagined.

So many little girls dream of horses and never come to own one in this lifetime. And yet here is my girl, whose home office is filled with our old Breyer models and vintage horse books, hers and mine, side by side, with Layla just down the road, offering her the same unconditional love in her own gentle, horse way, because Layla knows Keli loves her, cares for her, and protects her.

I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten. I think of that verse and I see it lived out, right there in a Virginia pasture, in the shape of a Choctaw filly and my precious daughter.

I love my girl. I am so proud of the woman she has become. But more than that, I am grateful…endlessly grateful…that God is a faithful God who sees, who knows, and who is never silent, not even in the small and tender things.

Even in a horse named Layla.

This week I came across a poem recently that arrested my attention and that has stayed on my mind. It is Christina Rossetti’s short lyric, None Other Lamb. I encountered it while reading an article on the Inkwell Substack titled Being a Christian Writer is Costly by Sara Kyoungah White. This excellent and important article reflected on Rossetti’s faith and her refusal to soften the claims of Christ for the sake of acceptance. The article was timely for me, as I have found myself struggling to know what to do about writing and this website. (Side Note: I have really enjoyed the Inkwell community over at Substack. If you are a Christ-follower and if words and writing are one of the ways you process the world, then I highly recommend checking it out.). But even more than the wise words from the article’s author, Sara White, I found myself turning the words of Christina Rossetti’s poem over and over in my soul.

Christina Rossetti was a nineteenth-century English poet, deeply shaped by Scripture and by suffering. Though she was somewhat celebrated in her lifetime, her faith often put her at odds with the literary and social currents of her day. Chronic illness, grief, and disappointment marked much of her life. Yet her writing reflects a steady anchoring in Christ rather than in circumstance. None Other Lamb was written out of that place of weakness and dependence.

The poem opens with an uncompromising confession:

None other Lamb, none other name,
none other hope in heav’n or earth or sea,
none other hiding place from guilt and shame,
none beside thee!

What strikes me is the exclusivity of her language. There is no hedging here. No appeal to sentiment or self-sufficiency. This is the language of John 6, when Peter says, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” It is the language of Acts 4:12, that there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

Rossetti is not reaching for comfort. She is confessing truth.

The middle stanza feels especially close to home right now.

My faith burns low, my hope burns low;
only my heart’s desire cries out in me
by the deep thunder of its want and woe,
cries out to thee.

The last few months have been difficult spiritually, physically, and mentally. There have been days when prayer felt dry and worship felt quiet. My heart has felt cold. Yet Scripture reminds us that faith is not measured by intensity of feeling but by the object of our trust. A bruised reed He will not break, and a smoldering wick He will not quench.

Even faith that feels weak is upheld by a strong Savior.

Remind me of this, Jesus. Remind me that you uphold me.

Rossetti does not deny the weakness of her faith. She names it plainly. But she also knows where that weakness must be taken. Her heart’s desire cries out, not because she is strong, but because Christ is sufficient. This echoes Romans 8, where we are told that when we do not know what to pray, the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.

The final stanza settles the matter.

Lord, thou art Life, though I be dead;
love’s fire thou art, however cold I be:
nor heav’n have I, nor place to lay my head,
nor home, but thee.

This is theology put to verse. Life is not found in us but in Christ. Any warmth in me comes from His prior work, not my own effort. As Paul writes, “For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” Our hope is not our spiritual vitality, our consistency, or our emotional awareness of God’s presence. Our hope is Christ Himself, given to us by grace alone.

There is comfort here for those of us who feel unsettled or weary. Christ does not cease to be our home when our hearts feel cold. He does not withdraw His presence because our faith seems thin. He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.

I am grateful for writers like Rossetti that remind me that Christian faith – my faith – is not sentimental optimism. It is costly, yes, but it is also grounded in truth. It is sustained not by how tightly I cling to Christ, but by how securely He holds me.

And how securely He holds you, my fellow Christ-follower.

I need to return time and again to this simple confession. There is no other Lamb. No other hope. No other home. Even when I do not sense His nearness, He is here.

None other Hiding Place.
He is my home.
Psalm 90:1

Photo by Marek Piwnicki on Unsplash

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I recently passed another birthday.

In the days afterward, I felt both gratitude and grief mingle. Aching places and joyful places. Questions, longings, sighs. But also awe at how our God meets us in all of it.

How my God has met me day after day – after day.

As I looked back on the past year, the words of Psalm 94:17–19 kept echoing in my soul:

17 If the Lord had not been my help,
my soul would soon have lived in the land of silence.

18 When I thought, “My foot slips,”
your steadfast love, O Lord, held me up.

19 When the cares of my heart are many,
your consolations cheer my soul.

It was a challenging year in many ways. Not to the extent of the early months and years that followed my ex-husband’s arrest and the intense grief and darkness and fear that permeated life in those days.

Not even close.

But it was – and continues to be – a more challenging season than the past several years.

I believe that is why I have found myself pulled toward these words in Psalms time and time again since early in the year. They have become a light in the darkness. A signpost.

A reminder that even when I am discouraged and in those times that I may not sense God’s presence, his kindness, sovereignty, justice, mercy, and grace are still at work.

The honesty of “I would have dwelt in silence….”

Verse 17 catches my breath: “Unless the Lord had given me help, I would soon have dwelt in the silence of death.” The psalmist is raw: without God’s intervention, things would have ended badly. There are seasons when I have felt that same way — that without God intervening, I would be swallowed by silence or despair.

Sometimes the silence is external: a disappointment too heavy to speak. Other times it’s internal: the hush when faith seems distant, and words falter. But even there — even in that silence — God gives help. He reaches in to what feels like nothingness.

On this birthday, I look back and see places where I didn’t know how I would make it. But God’s hand was already there, sovereign beyond what I could see or even name.

“My foot is slipping” — the fragile posture of trust.

Verse 18 says, “When I thought, “My foot slips,” your steadfast love, O Lord, held me up.“

This is vulnerable language. It doesn’t pretend we stand firm always. We do slip. We falter.

I falter.

The strength of the Christian life is not our perfect adherance to a plan. I cannot achieve it. I cannot work hard enough. Check enough boxes.

Rather, it is God’s unshakable love supporting us when we can’t stand on our own.

In this past year, I’ve had moments when I have reached for the comfort of old doubts and fears. Moments when I did not sense God’s presence. Days when I deliberately chose to not pray…to not study…to not lay my soul before my God, out of stubbornness and foolishness.

And yet I know – as sure as I know another year has passed – that His steadfast love has kept me (see Jude 1). The hands of mercy reached down, His gentle fingers steadying what was unsteady.

That is grace.

Cares and Consolations

Verse 19: “When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul.“

Oh, how that describes this past year. Doubts. Joys. Fears. Griefs. Gratitude. Nightmares. All of it spinning in my soul. Some days I wrestled not merely with circumstances, but with the very things of God that I know to be truth.

But then — consolations. His truths that press in. Reminders that He is just, that he is good, that he has been so very faithful and kind, that He sees and knows, and that He reigns. In the midst of struggle, He gave me glimpses: the giggles of my grandsons, a sunrise, scriptures, books, time with my family, roadtrip adventures with my guy.

Those consolations did more than soothe; they cheered my soul.

They tasted of heaven.

The Attributes That Hold Us

Psalm 94:17–19 is not a neat theology lesson — it’s a lived testimony of the whole character of God:

• Sovereignty — The Lord is the one who helps, the one who rules over even what I cannot control.
• Kindness — His steadfast love holds me when my foot slips.
• Justice — He is the God who will not forget His people or abandon them to silence.
• Mercy — He meets me in weakness and sinfulness with compassion and forgiveness.
• Grace — He fills my weary heart with consolations that I did not earn.

This is the God who carried me through another year. And this is the God who goes with me into the next.

A prayer.

Lord,
When my feet slip, You hold me up by Your steadfast love.
When my mind is undone, You hold me together.
When my soul is weary, You bring consolations that delight.
You are just, you are kind, you are merciful, you are gracious — and You reign.
Thank You for another year, for weakness that draws me to You, and for the gifts of Your goodness.
May I walk in deeper trust this year, leaning into Your kindness, resting in Your sovereignty, and ever grateful for Your mercy and grace.
Amen.