Just Like Himself

There is something important which I always forget about hitting rock bottom as a Christian, which is that just about the time you get to the lowest circle of Hell, the whole world flips on its head and you see a light on the other side. (It's all in Dante.) Are you still at the center of the earth? Absolutely. Is it still an impossible climb? Definitely. Are you more weary than you thought possible? Of course! But still... you reach the bottom, and God is waiting there. All doubts, all stress, all exhaustion, all illness, all grief leads to this pure and lifegiving thing: God is there.

I woke today, and He was there, just sitting on the foot of my bed, looking like Himself.
"Hi," I said, very softly.
"Hello, dear heart."
"It's going to be all right, isn't it? Now that you're here?"
"It's going to be better than all right."
I wanted to cry. "I'm glad you came."
He looked sideways at me with a certain smiling way he has that makes me feel about four years old and more than usually forgetful of Important Things. "I'm glad, too."
And then I really did cry, against his shoulder, for all my foolish misery of the last six weeks. Then we talked and talked, and laughed, and remembered, and hoped. At last he rolled up his sleeves, and said "Now then, what's to be done today?"

Today we came to work together. And that will make all the difference.