It’s hard to know when you aren’t well. I think many of us are pretty good at being highly functional, and when cracks surface, we’d rather just patch them over and move on. But sometimes, excavating is needed, as that patch wears away only to reveal greater problems underneath. I’m grateful that the role of the Holy Spirit is not merely to patch our souls. He wants that we are whole, and yet what we fear is that somehow we will be left vulnerable to our own shame. The fact is, until I see what’s wrong with me, the less I know of the graciousness of God. Because what’s wrong will not condemn me (no matter how much the enemy wants for me to believe otherwise). Instead, the Spirit of God says, “Come.” And I must trust that this is the best resolution of all.

When I'm anxious, God can seem somehow absent. If I continue this belief, there is a resulting darkness of which I am not easily persuaded out of. Does God not see? Am I beyond His omniscience? Graciously, these questions prompt the Spirit's voice, reminding me that I indeed have a God who sees.

If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.

If I say, "Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night," even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.

For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. - Psalm 139:9-13

It's easy for me to get inside my own head. Because of this, I have to untangle fact from fiction by leaning on God's Word. Moreover, I need the community of the redeemed to remind me that this too, shall pass. God is present. And He knows.