along the dark and twisty road

Did you know, that there is such a thing as becoming more confused by your obedience?The things I wish someone had told me.Obey, and the road will get darker and twistier. Obey, and the clarity you prized will vanish. Obey, and the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living will become the prayer for water on a desert highway, the simplest, most desperate question - is there manna for me today, Lord? - with no thoughts of hoarding it or storing it up or anything but the one meal, the daily meal, the crumbs from the table meal.Obey, and that sweet daydream you had about what you would be like and sound like and do, the person you glorified in your mind, you in maxi skirts sweeping through your life with such grace and such ease, she is crying on the couch, yet again, making lists, yet again, asking again for a manna she doesn't know how to find on her own.And you think about how to say it because you think there is nothing more embarrassing than admitting it, that you don't have it together on this dark and twisty road.I keep thinking about Jacob.I keep thinking about all the moments when I have likened myself to Jacob, wrestling, strong, prevailing through the night. I keep thinking about all the times that I have said I have wrestled with God and yet my life is being delivered. Or even because I am wrestling so my life is being delivered.It was night when Jacob wrestled. I never noticed that before.Jacob wrestled until the day broke open.Jacob went out into the dark and twisty night, into the utter unknowing, and wrestled until there was light.I will not let you go unless you bless me. I will not let you go.I am saying this in the dark. I am saying this to a God who I grasp for and hold onto, praying that I have, in fact, found God, that the wrestling is a holding fast, that in the midst of the darkness is the closest kind of encounter.The things I keep inscribing on my heart and the sides of my notebooks during class, that this is the place of closest encounter and Jacob, he walked with an ache in his hip because in the ache is the remembering of how we wrestle with God, all of us, and how in that is the closeness, the hope.I'm out here on the dark and twisty road of obedience, and if you're there, too, then can I whisper a hello, I can see you? And together we will wrestle until day breaks open.Love,hilary