Covered in Grace

I am undeserving of God’s grace
and yet, He has covered me in it.

For eight months I wandered, aimless, self-centered, hollowed of hope.
I sought to heal wounds only the Lord could mend,
pressing frail bandages to mortal wounds
no prayer, no hymn, no Bread of Life to sustain me.

I lost myself in the noise of the world,
consumed by its endless sorrows,
wrapped in the glow of passing images,
searching for myself in the next fleeting reflection.

I found false companionship among other wandering sheep,
bound not by truth, but by a shared longing
for something we could no longer name.

And the farther I wandered,
the deeper I sank
until I no longer knew the ground beneath me,
nor the face I carried.

I became a sheep in wolf’s clothing
hardened, restless,
tossed between anxiety and despair.

My rosary lay still,
buried beneath the dust of forgotten months.
The words once etched upon the tablet of my heart
faded like vanishing ink
and in their place,
strange and shifting inscriptions were formed.

Wandering no longer felt like loss,
but like a vast and thrilling expanse
a world without boundary,
without restraint.

And yet

something began to decay.

The farther I strayed,
the more my flesh seemed to wither.
Fear followed closely behind me,
a shadow that would not loosen its hold.

Even sleep betrayed me.

What once was solace
became a battlefield
where shadows stretched and stirred,
reaching with long, unseen limbs.

Night terrors bled into waking hours
panic that clung,
a heart that would not quiet.

And like one fully given to the world,
I leaned upon my own understanding.

I sought to heal myself.
I opened doors long sealed,
convinced that if I could only cleanse what was hidden,
all would be made whole.

But then,

Mercy.

Grace.

Undeserved, unearned, unrelenting grace.

I was found.

My Shepherd sought me
His small, trembling sheep
thirsting, starving, undone,
aching for the Bread of Life I had abandoned.

I had run relentlessly,
searching for what I could never reach alone,
even turning toward that which sought my ruin
and yet, not by my strength,
not by my will

I was saved.

In this final week of Lent,
I look back upon those eight months
lost, wandering, unraveling
and I give praise to God,
who found me.

But I was not found without purpose.

The wandering has been replaced
not with ease,
but with weight.

A pressing urgency.
A quiet command that does not relent:
Do not bury what I have given you.

And so I return

not only to Jesus Christ,
my Lord and my Savior
but to you,
my brother, my sister in Him.

I do not return as I once was.

Not as the one who seemed to know,
who spoke as if formed and certain
not as an image of polished faith,
or carefully arranged devotion.

I return as I am:

a sinner,
unrefined,
unresolved,
learning still.

Not perfected
but covered.

Not worthy
but kept.

Praying only this
that I am not lost again.

—

I will write.
I will share.
Not what is already written
not what may be found in the Catechism,
nor what the Saints have already spoken with greater clarity

but this:

my life,
my honesty,
my walk with Christ.