I listen to the steady, comforting sounds of life over in the big barn – low voices murmur, cows chew and moo, metal buckets scrape the concrete floor, pigeon wings flap with energy. Even before I open my eyes, I’m also hearing something else - the song loop playing in my brain, “the hum of the day.”
But today? I pause, acknowledging that walking the journey of someone else’s pain has some long lonely stretches, and I think through those words again. Yep, I need them, today. I carry the song with me as my mind wakes up, and I remember friends, walking through deep valleys, fighting battles I can’t even imagine:
a single mom suddenly in need of both employment and housing,
another friend saying a hard goodbye to a suddenly gone loved one,
my friend facing six more weeks of “no weight bearing” on a foot she’s barely used this year,
this one facing a daunting new job,
another trying to embrace a diagnosis that has no good outcomes,
that family needing to make impossibly hard family decisions... on and on.
Not the only one struggling.
Not the only lonely one.
Not the only one in need of the reminder.
Never once have I ever walked alone...
Not one time.
Is He safe? Not exactly.
Is He good? Always.