Hope Within the Letters
Most of my prayers recently have been brief, woolly, and vague. All of them contain the word “just.”
“Just, please God, help.”
“I just need you to do something”
“Please, just act. Just uphold. Just hold”
“Just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”
“Just, please. Please.”
The definition of “just” as an adverb is sort of nebulous, and I feel quite incoherent when I rely on the term to take my deepest griefs and desires up to God. I feel imprecise and spent when I use it. It should or might be defined as “simply.” Simply help us, Lord! And that’s not necessarily incorrect. But I suppose this is all to say that I’m finding there’s a whole world that is held within the crook of the letter J in “just”. There’s gumption, and pain, and eagerness. A longing, a yearning, a desperation. There’s so much bound up in the word that its letters feels like extended hands, open vessels carrying and caring for me.
Yes, a letter extends a hand to me and invites me to walk alongside it. And maybe that says something of my loneliness or self-imposed isolation. Maybe I feel the need for the letter to do all the work of a life-long friend. My chin sets perfectly in the hook of a J, and like a shepherds staff, it wraps itself around my neck and lifts my head upward, heavenward.
I think the Holy Spirit is in that letter J. Perhaps he sits securely in that hook and holds all of the desperation we feel when the word “just” leaves our lips. Perhaps he uses the letter as that iconic shepherd’s staff, extending himself to me, reeling me in while I, myself, and reeling and frantic.
I don’t have many words to spend these days, and writing has felt costly and expensive. I haven’t had much to spare. But today, in the catharsis of rambling about a letter that seems less like a member of the alphabet and more like a dear friend, I pray and wish to gift an exhortation. Both for my own benefit and for yours.
May the letters of your prayers meet, greet, and guide you today. May they minister to you wandering and wondering. May they reveal God himself to you, reminding you of his presence and purpose for you. May you accept the grace that is found in the letter J, in the word “just”, in the gentleness of our Shepherd’s hook that guides, cherishes, and treasures you.
