Coming Back After a Long Time Away
“I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, your transgressions, and, as a cloud, your sins. Return to me, for I have redeemed you.”
Isaiah 44:22
Most people who stay away do not stay away because they stopped believing. They stay away because of the doorway — the certainty that someone will ask where you have been, and that you will have to account for the years. So it gets put off another week. Then another. Ten years can go by on a technicality.
Everything is in the order of that sentence. Return to me, for I have redeemed you. Not so that you may be. Not and then you will be. The redeeming is in the past tense and the returning has not happened yet. It was settled while you were still away.
He does not compare it to a stain to be scrubbed. He compares it to a cloud. Clouds do not get cleaned — they burn off, and afterwards there is nothing to point at, no mark on the sky to show where one was.
You do not need a speech. You do not need to have sorted out what you think first. Sit at the back if the back is what you can manage. Say the first honest sentence you have. That is the whole of what is being asked.
A Prayer for Today
Lord, it has been a long time, and I have no explanation ready. I am here anyway. Take me back. Amen.
