Like a glittering coat of watery diamonds, a sheet of rain threw itself against the window next to Jacyln. Water smeared into stallions of transparent strength, burrowing fierce rivers into jagged lines across her sight. How she longed to bury her face right into that pane and let her tears mix with that ongoing torrent of wild water.

It had all happened so quickly. So unexpectedly. And now? Well, now all she could do is wait. Wait and hope. And trust. And wait.

Had waiting ever been so difficult? Gone were the days of childish worry over a delayed visit to the ocean or library. How long ago were the times that she had chafed over the weeks till the events of summertime. How very, very far was the year she had thought waiting for her dream of becoming a novelist was so terribly far away. Now?

How less those demands were valued in her time!

The click of nearby knitting needles created a rhythmic frame within the creaking wheels of transport. A baby’s cry fringed the edge with delicate lace while a muted argument a few rows back made that lace feel like fine wire. Her heart was not the only one that was hurting. What weariness could be found in this world.

Jacyln bent over and reached quietly for her valise. Pulling out a leather journal she opened it and released the pen that was wrapped inside.

The storm creamed the air with throbs of weeping waves, the rattle of chain and wheel and creaking boards kept a harmony with no tune. Yet the voices and stirs of humanity melded into a quiet backdrop for her thoughts.

April 14th, 18–

Waiting.

Waiting in a womb of wonder that can wound. Wounds that blister with the length of time, festering in fear with faint flickers of faith, fearing that fatal falling is to come.

This longing in the landscape of wondering over when. These wounds. These mourning calls of the heart. These desperate days …

…like tools in the hand of a carpenter, we are molded in our mourning. Shaped in our sorrow, drawn close in our desperate days of threatening despair. And in the dark womb of waiting, in the throbbing echo of our hearts …glory is being carved through the jagged edges of our needs, planting seeds of hope, lifting up our weary heads to believe the truth that never left us from the start. Faith beyond sight, evidence for the unseen, reality for the empty, life for the dead. In our willingness to fly and fight and flee and field the next blow, breathing on past the death of heart-lung capacity, gripping tight the invisible threads of truth when our fingers have slipped over the brow of the weather beaten vessel of all that is seen …in that willingness, we carry on. And as our beaten souls bend with burrowing winds in the wilderness, when they water in the world of weeping, when they melt in the middle of melding …in the midst of the dying, right in the lying of weary strength upon the landscape of littered flickers of faith-light …right in the womb of wounded wilderness …hope.

Grace upon grace and right in the pain we realize we gain by the preciousness of what is divine. A Hand that holds on when we have slipped by. An Arm that holds steady when we have fallen crushed. A Heart that always cares when we feel lost. A Love that never forgets when His child has forgotten.

In the hand of our Creator, seeming delays may be but the draught of life-giving balm for the heart–that it always needed, but may never have asked for.

He knows best.

Her finger slipped and she drew the journal closed, leaving one hand still within the pages as though holding onto this memory of hope. She couldn’t forget. She must not give in.

The promise was hers. Forever and always.

Re-opening the journal, Jacyln added a few more lines.

Being a nanny along a coast I have never known is not how I would have envisioned my life …never would I have dreamed that my older brother would be lost in a war and I would be left to find my own way. But even more so, I would have never expected the Lord to speak to me so clearly that my brother would one day return home. Return alive when all evidence speaks to the contrary. Most of all, I trust the promise of the Lord in Isaiah 41:10. He will be my strength and the One to uphold me.

Beautiful things often come from hard things. Never give up hope, Jacyln.

After a slight pause, Jacyln finished with a firm hand and the watery seal of a mourning soul …

“He hath made every thing beautiful in his time:” Ecclesiastes 3:11a

And once again another soul set sail against the winds of night, bravely hoisting its banner of faith, courageously facing the vast ocean of uncharted waves beyond.

And how many hearts have proven the truth of the Word of God, just like Mary, so many years ago … “And blessed is she that believed: for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord.” Luke 1:45