If Your Face Is Toward Me

A young man had just buried his wife. Back home from the cemetery, he put his small son to bed and lay down in the darkness himself — grief-stricken, hollowed out, with no idea how to face what came next.

From across the room, his little boy broke the silence. "Daddy, where is mommy?" The father brought the boy into bed with him, but the child kept asking — why isn't she here, when is she coming back — until finally the boy said something that stopped his father cold.

"Daddy, if your face is toward me, I think I can go to sleep now."

And in a little while, he was quiet.

The father lay in the darkness and found himself praying the only prayer he had: "O God, I don't see how I can survive this. The future looks so miserable. But if your face is toward me — somehow I think I can make it."

That prayer is ancient. The Psalmist prayed it thousands of years ago: "Restore us, O God; let your face shine, that we may be saved." A grieving father prayed it in the dark. People of faith have prayed it in every century since, in every language, in every kind of darkness.

It is not a prayer that asks for the darkness to be removed. It is a prayer that asks for presence within it. A face turned toward us. The assurance that we are not alone in what we are carrying.

That may be enough. For a child in the dark, it was. For a grieving father, it was. It may be for you today as well.

Prayer: Turn your face toward us, O God. We are not asking for easy answers or quick relief — only for the assurance of your presence. Let us sense you here, in whatever darkness we are sitting in today. That may be enough. Amen.

‍