✞ Isolation, Illumination; a poem

In the desert of my longing,
where isolation felt like exile
my world reduced to pain that felt like punishment,
You were there—
the breath between my begging,
waiting for the moment
my heart would recognise You.

What I called emptiness,
was the chamber You prepared for revelation.
What I called abandonment,
was the place where all other voices fell away
so Yours could enter unencumbered.

You stepped into that stillness,
placed a hand on my wounds
with tenderness than bought me to my knees,
the Truth,
the Life,
and the Way,
the presence that has followed me
through every trench of despair.

All my longing for God,
years of meditation and surrender,
were braided with Your footsteps,
the loving companion
when I prayed through tears of desperation,
torn apart by heartache, by pain that would not relent.

In every aching pull toward something
I could never quite articulate,
I found You reaching back,

Isolation; illumination—
I was never alone.

And I love You
with the same love
You stitched into my ribs
before I ever had a name.