Unseen Footprints

In one of my last posts, I referred to the hope of salve.  Lately, this concept seems to present itself in so many lives around me.  I have a friend who is facing a number of hardships.  She referred to the past 6 months as a succession of "one two punches"; they just keep coming.  As I listened to her share her heart over dinner, I gripped her punch idea and kept finding myself nodding in avid agreement.  The loss, betrayal, heartache, suffering, trial, you choose the word, just oozed out of our conversation and I found myself on the precipice of complete devastation for her.  At the same time, walking down the path of her own heartache, took me back to reliving the events of our past few years.  It was as if the dark mood lighting of the restaurant was having an effect on our own faces and souls.  Shadows encircled our booth, even amidst the nonsensical chatter from surrounding tables, the boisterous laughter emanating from the bar area, and the continual bad timing of an over-eager waitress who was obviously having a very bad day.  Normal was our backdrop, while we were contained in a small space of apparent gloom.  And, we are not the only ones.  My mind flitted to a number of friends who, recently, have not simply faced heartache, but lived through it. 

You see, there is a marked difference between, "we might have this issue", "we had this scare", "we started going through this difficult time but", and "our world was shaken to its core and we had to find hope, strength, understanding in the aftermath of loss".  As I've grown older (ick, I said that old phrase again), I've witnessed both sides.  The difference between them is huge and is a struggle to communicate.  Both though, include God's hand.  For me, for my friend, more importantly, it's His unseen footprints. 

You have to understand, our conversation did not remain clothed in black but came up for draughts of sunshine at important moments.  They might have been small but they were present.  Their force was huge because even a ray of light can beam a path through darkness.  When the heaviness of the conversation began to take me down an unlit path, it was amazing, how God's hand pointed my head towards His footprints.  Sharing my past, which was eerily similar, was the first step; however, we didn't hover there and remain on the commonalities.  Instead, we forged through to the beacons of hope which have lit the past few years (or in one instance, many years).  As we talked about my past, His footprints in even the most grating of circumstances, were visible.  For my friend, she's in the beginning of her tragedy.  The footprints can't be seen, due to the mess of sand, dirt, and debris covering their presence.  It's only in the trusting that they are certainly there.  In the knowing she serves a faithful God, whose walked before her through this mess and whose will is IN every circumstance's result.  His will is sometimes loss.  His will is at times devastation.  His will can be for me, for you, to be shaken to our core and left in the aftermath.

His footprints are defined by His word.  Romans 8:38-39 became some of our lighted footprints.   As we talked, we could say we were "convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the past nor the present, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord".  His footprints are defined by the ability of those who have faced the unfaceable to still speak of His grace, His mercy, and His love for them.  The outline of His feet is made clear in the expressions of those who are willing to carry the burdens of a friend traversing similar paths; in the tears that fall, the hands that are held, the time spent in prayer, the words shared, and the continual refocusing on a Savior.  The track of his scarred feet is visible in where the Savior walked before us.

Not all is now bright and beautiful, not all of life's problems were solved, there are still pangs of hurt, sadness, and anger which will shadow our pathways.  Yet, we know we are walking in the hope of not being on our own and not fearing that our lives, in the throes of devastation, are left to the wind or to evil's hand.  Instead, our present paces are in step with unseen footprints, which at some future times, we are able to see glimpses of the footprints which were always in front of us, lighting the path of God's will for us.

2 Corinthians 4:16-18

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.