Day 217

Isaiah 23–24 | Matthew 26:26–46 | Psalm 91

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It’s been a while since I last cried.

I don’t mean the quiet kind—where your eyes just well up and maybe one tear escapes. I mean the kind where you can’t stop it. Where your nose runs and your pride gets drowned in it.

That happened this morning.

I was sitting at the same therapy table I’ve sat at for 8 months when Lindsay pulled out a new splint she’d ordered for me. It’s supposed to keep my middle finger extended, to hopefully coax it back toward straight.

The irony is: we’ve spent months trying to get that same finger to bend. Pushing it, stretching it, forcing it into tighter arcs to regain passive range of motion. But now, because of all that progress, it doesn’t straighten.

So as we worked to fix one problem, we created another.

The splint she ordered was the largest size they make. But it wouldn’t fit. Wouldn’t slide past the thick scar tissue that’s ballooned around the base of the finger.

And I lost it.

It wasn’t the splint. Or the scar tissue. Or the job loss. Or the pressure or the constant swirl of what’s next. It wasn’t even the realization as I sat in that chair that this was my first day of unemployment.

It was all of it together. At once.

And my emotional floodgates flew open.

Lindsay—who has seen me frustrated, determined, joking, sarcastic—just grabbed the tissue box, handed it to me, and then held my scarred hand.

And in her gentle, born-in-Britain, raised-in-South-Africa accent, all she said was, “Grant, let me pray for you.”

There we sat. In the middle of a crowded clinic. Patients around us. Therapists moving. Machines beeping.

And she prayed. Not for my hand. For my heart.

Not Just One Cup

In Matthew 26, Jesus goes to Gethsemane with a heart heavy enough to sweat blood. He tells the disciples His soul is “very sorrowful, even to death.”

And then He prays this:

“If it be possible, let this cup pass from Me.”

Not just one cup of pain. Not just one sip of sorrow.

But the full measure. All at once.

Betrayal. Abandonment. Injustice. Torture. Sin. Wrath. Separation.

The weight of it didn’t come from one blow. It came from all of them at the same time.

And the Father didn’t remove the cup. He handed it to Him—because love required it, and justice demanded it.

The Layered Kind of Suffering

I think I’ve expected life to only hand me one trial at a time.

But real suffering stacks up.

It’s the therapy setback and the job strain.

The sadness and the silence.

The scar tissue and the being stuck.

Sometimes the thing you fixed creates a new thing to fight. And the exhaustion isn’t from one thing—it’s from all the things you’re carrying at once.

That’s where I was this morning. And God didn’t rush to fix it. He just reminded me that He’s in it.

Under His Wings

Psalm 91 says this: “He will cover you with His pinions, and under His wings you will find refuge; His faithfulness is a shield and buckler.”

God doesn’t promise we’ll dodge all the darts.

But He does promise to cover us with His presence. Not with a splint. Not with a severance package. Not with an answer.

With Himself.

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Lord, I hate feeling weak. I hate when one blow turns into five. And I hate crying in public. But You are with me when I do. And that means I’m not unraveling alone. So be my refuge when the pain doesn’t pick just one spot. Hold me in the chaos. Cover me with Your wings. And when I can’t see what You’re doing, let me trust that You’re still doing it. Amen.