There is a great big gap in my life right now, and I can’t fill it. Just can’t. I’ve tried to, for so long, with as many things as I can think of to fill it up, mend it, step over it, get past it. And there it sits.

Some days, it’s such a permanent fixture that I think I must have welcomed it, or at least allowed it to become a part of the backdrop of my life. It’s not a gap I originally invited, one I really understand, or one I intended on leaving be for an extended period of time. I’m a “fix it” kind of girl. And because I can’t fix it–can’t solve the problem or come to the rescue, this gap is something I’m having to turn over daily to God.

When something becomes so much a part of you, turning it over feels like the hardest possible thing. It’s like ripping off a Band Aid over and over, or taking out your own stitches. Like peeling back layers of yourself to reveal exposed, unprepared parts of you that you know will hurt and take time to heal. And you have to do it anyway.

Today I’ve been wrestling with all of this and thinking to myself, “Why do I have to turn it over? Why does it feel like it’s solely mine to resolve, when I didn’t dig it out in the first place? Why, unless I turn it over every. single. day. will it sit in the background and draw attention to itself ever-so-quietly, so that over time, it’s more like a glaringly obvious obstruction and less like a little, unobtrusive gap?” I wanted it to be surmountable. Humanly surmountable. So I could fix it.

Instead, I’m trying to visualize myself with an open hand, sand running through my fingers and covering over a multitude of things, not the least of which is this gap, a canyon now, in my head. And my fear is that it will take absolutely forever to fill it up so that I can cross over it, wave it goodbye, put it in the past. My fear is that I will never have enough sand to spill through. That I will get in the way of things by tightening my fist too hard around something I could never control in the first place. That I will fall into the gap and not recover.

The thing I’m starting to see, ever so slowly, is that I have worried and contemplated and anguished over this glaring space as much as I’m humanly able. The only option I’ve got left is to say, “Here you go. Please take it. I can’t. I wanted to, but I’m not big enough or strong enough or divine enough to do it on my own. It’s yours.” It’s. Yours. And then I have to trust, more than I’ve ever trusted before, that God has seen it and knows it and will do with it what He needs to. That somehow, I will look back, and He will have dealt with the gap. It’s both so challenging–and so beautiful, that our lives require a merciful, compassionate, attentive, responsive God to stand in the gap. It’s what He has done since time began, and what He will do for eternity. He’s the best in the business. The Master of His trade. The only gap-mender I’ve ever known.

I trust that He sees. He sees me, and He sees the gap. He knows just how much it hurts. God, please take care of this gap. I really can’t do it on my own. My hands are open, and there’s room for you. Stand in.

mm