Unseen Footprints in the Storm (Mark 6:47-50)

I was rearranging the books on my bookshelf when I found it hidden behind some larger volumes. It was a diary that had been given to my daughter over twenty years ago when she graduated from high school and left home. On the cover was a picture of a slightly opened gate and below was written, “Your future is as bright as the promises of God.” I still remember walking into her almost empty room and finding the diary on the floor in the corner. She hadn’t wanted it so I asked if I could use it, now that she was gone, to share my thoughts with her.

The first entry was marked 6/13/97. It read, “Faith, it’s midnight and I miss you. I have found it hard to sleep tonight. There’s an emptiness in the house and in my heart.” I didn’t realize when I wrote those words that there would be many sleepless nights to come. I didn’t know that I was going into a storm. The book became my companion as I tried to navigate the storm in the dark night of my soul where all the things that I believed seemed to be put to the test.

As I read through the entries in the diary I was reminded of storms that the disciples encountered in the ship at night. The first time they woke Jesus with the words, “Teacher! Don’t you care that we’re going to die?” (Mark 4:38). The storm had exposed their vulnerability but it had also exposed who they thought Jesus was--a teacher. However, when He spoke to the wind and the sea and they had obeyed Him they asked, “Who is this?” In the second storm they are alone in the boat being battered as they rowed, because the wind was against them. Again it was the dark of night. Once more Jesus showed that He was Lord of the storm by walking on the water.

As I read through the pages that I had written so long ago, the memories came alive. I could feel again not only my connection with the disciples, but also with the psalmist who penned the words, “I cry aloud to God, aloud to God, and He will hear me. In my day of trouble I sought the Lord. My hands were lifted up all night long; I refused to be comforted” (Psalm 77:1,2). Being in a storm strips away the veneer and leaves behind the naked, exposed soul. What can be hidden in the light of day is revealed in the darkness of a stormy night.

I would discard this diary if the only thing I found there was my own vulnerability. But what I found revealed in its pages was a reflection of what both the psalmist and the disciples discovered. “The sound of Your thunder was in the whirlwind; lightning lit up the world. The earth shook and quaked. Your way went through the sea, and Your path through the great waters, but Your footprints were unseen” (Psalm 77:18,19). There in the pages of this diary as I wrestled in the darkness in the storm I began to get a glimpse of the unseen footprints of my shepherd.

The book had been lost for over twenty years, but now that my daughter is the age that I was when I wrote it for her, perhaps she’ll understand. Yes, perhaps she’ll understand.