Thursday in the Fourth Week of Lent
Yet I am always with you;
you hold me by my right hand.
Psalm 73:23
I am standing in the check-out line of the discount store when it happens. A sudden overwhelming feeling that I do not belong.
I have experienced this before, this disconnect with those around me that compels me into the lonely landscape of doubt. In a group of colleagues, or parents at one of my daughter’s events, or friends at a social gathering, or neighbors in the town in which I live.
I am sure it is the enemy who whispers in my ear at these moments, who has caught me unawares, and who has been rifling through my soul and brought to the surface all my insecurities.
This is an unsteady place to stand, for if I do not belong here it is either because I am less worthy than everyone else…or more. Neither is a true picture of what it means to be made in the image of God.
So I breathe deeply, and in my mind I reach up my hand to place it in God’s only to discover I have been held all along. And in the next breath I tell the enemy to take a hike.
