Many of us find great comfort
in the assurance that God will never abandon us,
but let's examine the record here:
she did abandon her only Child,
whose chillingly anguished cry
from the cross to which she was nailed–
"My God, my God, why have you left me,
now, of all times now!"–
must have felt brutal and complete,
without promise of return.
(To believe in return
is to misunderstand abandonment.)

And then there's Isaiah 54:7,
in which God admits, without apology,
"Yes, for a while, I did abandon you…"
She did return,
but only hindsight is 20/20;
the experience of abandonment
holds no hint of return.

So when you experience moments
of God's utter, silent, cold absence,
perhaps what you're experiencing
is God's utter, silent, cold absence.
Others will try to assure you she is still there,
still holding you.
But perhaps she is not.

And all you can do is hold on
and wait for a future you cannot predict.

Or so the Bible tells us.

Or so faith tells us.

To listen to this poem Download Abandonment

Text and image © 2011 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.