Be Our Arm

“Be our arm every morning.” – Isaiah 33:2

“Your right hand upholds me.” – Psalm 63:8

“The general rule in nature is that live things are soft within and rigid without. We vertebrates are living dangerously, and we vertebrates are positively piteous, like so many peeled trees… I am sitting under a sycamore tree: I am soft-shell and peeled to the least puff of wind or smack of grit.” – Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Some days I wake up with the realization that I’m going to need some strength to get through the day. It used to be I felt like this in the face of predictably challenging events, but nowadays the feeling could happen anytime. It’s like I wake up feeling “soft-shell and peeled,” realizing how fragile indeed I am, how susceptible to my own moods and lack of reserves. How limited I am at being able to actually live into the eternal hope and joy I know myself to possess. Sometimes the chasm between knowing and feeling seems untraversable.

I’ve never had to be led about by the arm, though I’ve seen many patients come into my clinic that way. They have a different kind of gait: usually slower, as if taking it one step at a time in their minds. When you lean on someone’s arm, it starts off like that, going into the day one step at a time. The person who lends you their arm bears your weight and the weight of whatever you carry. They give you a sense of direction, not miles ahead, but far enough so you know where to put your foot down next. And unlike a cane or walking stick, there’s a kind of companionship knowing someone is beside you. It’s like that line near the end of Jane Eyre: “Then he stretched his hand out to be led. I took that dear hand, held it a moment to my lips, and then let it pass round my shoulder: being so much lower of stature than he, I served both for his prop and guide. We entered the wood, and wended homeward.” 

How do you get God’s strength when you don’t feel it, or feel like it? You ask. Like Isaiah, you ask. And you make some kind of decision to trust, to reach out, and not think too hard, and go forward one step at a time.