The Shadow and the Morning

Reflections on Faith in Darkness (psalms 56 and 130)

There are times when faith does not speak but only breathes.

When pain or weariness closes the lips, the psalms become our voice.

They speak what we cannot say, giving shape to the cry that rises from the heart when words fail.

The following reflections are born from such a night.

The first is the prayer of one who feels abandoned, the second of one who has begun to see that even in silence God waits with him.

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When the Shadow Descends

Have mercy on me, God, have mercy,

for my soul takes refuge in You.

But tonight, I cannot feel that refuge.

The shadow has settled heavy on my chest,

and I am weary of pretending that I am not afraid.

It comes when my body is weak,

when fever burns, when pain crawls beneath the skin,

and when my mind, already frayed,

can no longer carry the weight of the day.

Then the darkness finds its opening.

It slips through the cracks and begins to whisper:

You are useless. You have failed those entrusted to you. You are alone.

I know the words are lies,

but they sound like truth when I am tired.

I want to speak of God’s goodness. I want to believe.

But my mouth feels sewn shut.

The psalmist cries, “I am surrounded by lions;

their teeth are spears and arrows, their tongue a sharpened sword.”

I know these lions. They live inside me.

They feed on my doubt and my shame.

I tell myself to trust, to hold fast to the promises,

but my faith feels like dry wood in the rain.

Where is the flame that once burned so bright?

I remember it, how the heart used to lift at the sound of His name,

but memory is a cruel companion when the present feels hollow.

Yet even in this silence, I hear the psalm’s refrain:

“I will cry to God the Most High, to God who has always been my help.”

Always, not only when I feel His presence.

Always, even when my prayer is a groan too deep for words.

So I speak His name into the darkness,

not because I feel strong, but because I have nowhere else to go.

My lips are dry, but they still move.

If I can say only one thing, let it be this:

Have mercy on me, God, have mercy.

The psalmist’s voice becomes mine:

“My heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready.”

I whisper it like a man clutching the edge of a cliff.

I am not ready with strength or with joy,

only with desperation, with the fragile will to believe again.

Maybe that is enough.

Maybe faith, when stripped bare,

is nothing more than refusing to let go,

even when every feeling has fled.

The shadow may still linger,

but beneath it, a faint pulse remains,

a trust not born of light,

but of endurance.

So I wait.

I wait for the dawn the psalm promises,

when “Your glory will shine over all the earth.”

Until then, I will lie still beneath the shadow,

and keep the Name in my breath,

hoping that even in silence, He still hears.

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Waiting for the Morning

Out of the depths I cry to You, O Lord.

It is not a cry of eloquence or faith but the cry of one who has reached the end of his strength.

I have no argument to make and no feeling to offer.

I only wait.

The night seems endless.

I wake and the darkness has not moved.

I pray and the words fall back upon me.

There is no voice from heaven, no comfort in my chest, only the ache of being left to silence.

I used to think that faith meant light, that the sign of grace was peace.

Now I begin to see that faith is born in blindness and that peace is not a feeling but a decision.

The psalmist says, “My soul is waiting for the Lord, I count on His word.”

He does not say that he feels the Lord.

He only waits.

He stands in the dark with his eyes open, trusting that morning is real even when he cannot see its light.

This is the poverty God asks of me, to remain before Him without demand, without consolation.

To wait with empty hands and a tired heart and still whisper, “I trust You.”

Perhaps this is what it means to pray without ceasing, to keep vigil not with words but with breath.

Sometimes I hear only the ticking of the clock and the slow beating of my heart.

Yet even these sounds become a kind of prayer.

Each moment that passes is another act of endurance, another offering.

The night teaches me that God is not found by escaping the darkness but by staying within it until it becomes transparent.

“My soul is longing for the Lord, more than watchmen for daybreak.”

The psalmist repeats the line, as if repetition itself were the act of faith.

The watchman does not make the sun rise.

He only keeps his post until it does.

So I remain here, in the quiet, waiting for the morning.

And when it comes, it will not be because I earned it or understood it but because mercy is stronger than night.