I like to sit on my stairs at home. It has frequently been a spot where I take a few moments out to be in an in-between space, a pause in the up and down, a narrow interlude to be neither here nor there.
Something about that midway ledge brings out the deepest honesty I have to offer God in that moment. I can think of several occasions over the course of the years when I have sat on the stairs with head in hands, heavy with ashen, burdensome thoughts and I’ve told God things like, ‘I can’t’, ‘I don’t see how’ or even ‘I don’t think I really believe that’.
But here’s the thing about a stairway - it’s a place of transition, we don’t stay there for too long. A ledge isn’t a place to be secure or to get very comfortable, the pause doesn’t last and there is an eventual shift back to movement, an interlude is always followed by the next acts of the production.
My most recent stairway experience was a head bowed low moment with thoughts that I would hardly have recognised as prayer. As I sat in the pause, my heart said, “I would really love somone to tell me that it’s all going to be okay, but no-one is going to do that are they, including you God because that’s not what you say’, and I vacated my ledge low in hope and filled with despondency.
A few hours later that evening, my phone pinged with a single message. My frame of mind almost made me miss the words right there in the middle of the text, despite the fact that there were even capital letters used to highlight it. A friend reached out with care and compassion to tell me, ‘it WILL all be okay.’
‘Did God just…?’
‘Have I just been told…?’
‘Did he really hear me say…?’
I’m still blinking in surprise!
But there were the words on the screen. An iMessage from God.
If we think those frank and honest stairway thoughts are hidden from or unknown to God, we are clearly mistaken. The fact that we are whispering them so very quietly in our inner world means that he must be awfully close beside us to hear them.
To quote from the George MacDonald poem, ‘That Holy Thing’
‘My how or when Thou wilt not heed,
But come down Thine own secret stair,
That Thou mayst answer all my need -
Yea, every bygone prayer.
That text message gave me so much reassurance that evening. The difficulty I was facing had not been removed but the emotional and spiritual heaviness was dispelled. Instead I had joy and delight at the unexpectedness of God’s response. I was given a double measure of presence. Not only did I receive comfort through the kindness of a friend full of empathy but also a remarkable and uplifting affirmation of God’s tender-hearted graciousness and presence.
Maybe next time we find ourselves needing a little while on the stairs, or wherever that may be for you, we will hold on to the knowledge that every thought and feeling, every word spoken or inwardly breathed, is heard by our Father who loves us just as we are.
May our stairway meetings be a holy thing.
