My Bible flipped to the place where the verse I call “life” resides.

I’m afraid I’m guilty of pulling out content that fits whatever fits my mind’s contextual angst.

I believe God knows my ways.

Today I focused on mercy and grace, the verse that comes right after a chastising people who fled in their unwillingness to believe what God gave to be their salvation.

I made two lists with bullets and questions this morning and it started, that pressure creeping up heavy, fire in my chest.

I’m in a pivotal time.

I could continue and believe and be quietly confident or I could tuck tail and run, falling apart and making a scene.

Because there are some things I’m uncertain of, panic I internalize.

I glanced just now towards the blue feather I saved in the middle.

A verse underlined with a bracket on the edge…the heading, “A Rebellious People”.

“And now, go, write it before them on a tablet and inscribe it in a book, that it may be for the time to come as a witness forever.”

‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭30:8‬ ‭ESV‬‬

The thought of it jumped off the page, the word rebellion.

I wondered if God’s words through Isaiah about stubborn people who were unwilling to hear God’s instruction

Were God’s words to me this morning.

Is it rebellious of me not to believe? Am I stubborn and panicked when the timing is not my way? Have I forgotten how he led them to safety and goodness.

Have I forgotten how He has led and kept me?

Don’t I remember the times before?

Is God saying, you are meant for keeping records of all this and of before?

That for someone now and for many others to come, it will be a witness of me through your struggles and your surrender?

Your remembering I am gracious and waiting to show mercy is a remembrance worth sharing through words, don’t you see it, Lisa?

Question marks are still there, next to tasks and challenges to consider.

I’m leaving them now to go church and worship. Be surprised again by what God is going to tell me.

I’ll leave the anxious list for now, the bulleted questions.

They’ll be waiting for later or tomorrow and I’ll know more clearly the way, I know.

“He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as he hears it, he answers you. And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.”

‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭30:19-21‬ ‭ESV