When I was sixteen years old, I spent a full week stenciling a favorite passage of scripture upon my clover green wall. The local craft store had provided everything I needed as an amateur muralist, and I began confidently stenciling the opening verses of Isaiah 61 in bold black paint for several days before I began to wonder if I hadn’t quite measured out enough space for the entire passage. What’s more, the lines had begun to slant, and the letters were crowding in on each other. With each day that passed, it became clear that my original intent would have to be abbreviated. Alas: verses 1-3 had been exchanged for ¾ of verse 1. Though slightly dampened, my spiritual fervor was moderately re-kindled as I stood back from my completed masterpiece in a paint-spattered robe, beholding the truncated words of Isaiah 61:

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness . . .

That’s as far as I got. But the freedom feeling of stretching my arms wide and high, using my whole body to paint scripture on a blank wall, is one I’ve carried with me ever since. As a teenager who hadn’t yet quite faced the darkness or needed the good news only the poor are desperate enough to receive, I sensed a connection with that passage—like something in me knew how much I would need it one day. Five years later, as an abused and heartbroken young wife just trying to make sense of her world turned upside down, God brought that passage and the subsequent verses to the forefront of my mind, where I turned it over and over like a promise that I desperately hoped He’d keep:

. . .and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes,
the oil of joy instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. 

Comfort in my grief, beauty for ashes, joy for mourning, a bridal gown of praise instead of the funeral shroud of despair? Yes. I needed these. In the dark years of that marriage, waiting for God’s deliverance, such promises became my light. The year that God mercifully delivered me from that marriage, I found myself standing in front of another wall, painted with the same passage I had once stenciled in naïve faith as a girl. Freshly in the midst of my own healing journey, I was interviewing for an internship position at a women’s recovery home for women who had been abused, forgotten, forsaken by those who should have helped them. As my future supervisor led me up the stairs to her office, what I saw in the stairwell stopped me in my tracks. It was a mural of a giant oak tree, festooned with the final portion of the passage I had begun painting on my bedroom wall years ago:

They will be called oaks of righteousness,
a planting of the Lord
for the display of his splendor.

This particular recovery center had also claimed the promises of Isaiah 61 over their hurting and healing women, even naming their program the Oaks Program as a proclamation of what God does on behalf of the downcast. During my time there as a counselor, I marveled at the goodness of a God who thought it was a good idea for my own healing journey to parallel and intersect with the women I was there to help. In a beautiful reversal, they would, of course, help me—linking arms with me, bearing with me as I learned and made mistakes, expanding my capacity to love as we reached our branches high and wide towards the Light, becoming deeply rooted displays of His splendor.

*

It’s been over a decade since that first inscribing of Isaiah 61 on my walls, and several years since God tattooed its promises—now fulfilled—upon my heart through marriage, divorce, counseling work, and re-marriage. This year, the beginning of Advent held another ending for me: the mental health support I’ve gratefully received from antidepressants for fifteen years. For a number of reasons, I’ve been tapering off of my medications for several months. What I didn’t realize is how difficult the final step would be—like walking off of a diving board at midnight with no lights, no clear sense of where the bottom is, nor how far I’ll fall before I feel like I’ve found my feet again. It has been difficult to write, to think clearly, to hold on to the former dreams and ambitions I’ve had to Write-a-book! ASAP! To get it done, to live the dream! (I’m exhausted just writing that.) Shame over my felt weakness has burned heavy on my chest like a scarlet letter. This week, frustrated with what has felt like a major roadblock in my journey, I told God,

“I feel like I’m standing in front of a huge, immovable concrete wall. I can’t see around it or go over it. What am I supposed to do?”

Unexpectedly playful and gentle, the response came:

“Why don’t you write on it?”

Dear friends, beloved of God, I don’t know what wall you may be sitting or kneeling or praying in front of this Advent. Maybe there is no wall at all—maybe you’ve been able to run, walk, soar by Jesus’ side unimpeded for some time now. If that is you, I bless you. Keep going! We need you. (And also, don’t be afraid or ashamed to rest as you need it). But if it’s a wall you’re facing, know that you’re in good company. Know that it’s precisely at our own private wailing walls that the angel meets us at midnight, saying things like “Be of good cheer! Fear not! Greetings, Highly Favored One! The Lord is with you! I bring you good news!” just as the angel said to Zechariah, Mary, Joseph, and the shepherds. And maybe the God who also writes on walls is holding out a paintbrush to you, just eager to see what new thing you’ll create together. As a wise friend recently reminded me when I lamented my felt feeling of stuckness, “I know what you mean about slow seasons. But You know life really does happen in seasons, and it’s good and normal and okay.” In this slow season of Advent waiting, hoping, and longing, may we be given every ounce of courage we need to paint words, songs, and pictures of hope-laden lament upon the walls of our heart—knowing that with the God of Jericho, impenetrable walls never remain that way for long.

Going Deeper: Listen to “The Year of His Favor,” musician Caroline’s Cobb’s rendition of Isaiah 61.