Grace in the Ruins
David Wilkerson 9/25/2025
I buried belief with her,
creeds don’t keep the night away)
Faith staggered, thin as breath-ing,
(I thought it too would fade).
But sorrow split the silence,
and beauty cut me through,
a goodness in the dark-ness
I had no right to choose.
Call it grace, call it love,
(call it nothing, call it enough)
What I lost returns as whisper—
(not a for-tress, just a song).
Call it grace, call it love,
(too frail to prove, too strong to hush)
In the ruins I belong.
Experience is brutal,
(but it will not be denied)
In the chamber of her dying
I heard life refuse to hide.
Belief came back as language,
a trembling in my chest.
To name what can’t be spoken
is the only faith that’s left.
Call it grace, call it love,
(call it nothing, call it enough)
What I lost returns as whisper—
(not a fortress, just a song).
Call it grace, call it love,
(too frail to prove, too strong to hush)
In the ruins I belong.
Oh, I thought the silence would break me,
(but it held me like a hymn).
What I buried rose to name me,
(and I let it breathe again).
Call it grace, call it love,
(call it nothing, call it enough).
In the ruins, in the ashes,
it was faith that learned to sing.
Call it grace, call it love,
(too frail to prove, too strong to hush).
And belief—belief returned—
as the song it could not bring.
“In the ruins I belong.”
Experience, Faith, and Belief
Belief, faith, and experience are often confused, but they are not the same.
Belief is assent of the mind—accepting doctrines or creeds. It gives structure, but can become brittle. Faith is entrustment of the heart—leaning one’s life into God, even without proof or reward. It endures when belief falters. Experience is lived encounter—moments of grief, beauty, or awe that ground us in reality and sometimes surprise us with grace.
Each on its own is incomplete. Belief without experience grows sterile. Experience without belief becomes chaotic. Faith without experience risks turning into grim endurance.
But when the three converge—belief giving shape, experience giving weight, and faith sustaining trust—we find something resilient enough to face both desolation and amazement.
For me, in the long illness and death of my wife, it was not belief that carried me, nor even faith as I had once preached it. It was experience—a haunting sense of pervasive good in a world otherwise hostile—that became the soil where faith could live.
The House of Guilt and Grief
Guilt is a funny thing. It insists on living with grief in the same house, windows shuttered, doors locked, the air thick with the smell of mold. I once thought I could tidy it up—dust the corners, polish the shutters, pretend the place was fit to live in.
But memory is not meant to be stored in stale rooms. The only way I know now is to raze the house. Let shame stand naked in daylight. Let the sun bleach what it will. Then love, and love alone, remains.
The irony, of course, is that I spent years paying rent on a place I should have burned down long ago.
Rapture Rumors: A Journey Through Time
The internet says the rapture is scheduled for tonight, September 23, 2025. Fine. I’ve heard wilder.
During the ‘60s, in high school, Mother drove us to our youth group meeting. Beside her sat Lou—the girl of my dreams. Just being in the same car with her was a thrill.
They were talking about a rumor: that very night all virgins would be whisked away to Mars.
From the back seat, eager to sound witty, I quipped:
“Well, Lou, you don’t have anything to worry about!”
Dead silence. Lou gasped, turned, mouth open in disbelief.
Then my mother—never one for cushioning a blow—delivered her judgment:
“It’s best to keep your mouth shut when you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
And she was right. I had no idea what I was talking about. At that age, plenty of my classmates were already exploring things I hadn’t even begun to imagine. My understanding of “virgin” went no further than Mary, mother of Jesus.
Mars never filled with teenagers that night. Lou stayed lovely, and I stayed innocent—bewildered at why everyone in the car was staring at me.
So when I hear predictions that tonight’s the night—that the skies will split, the chosen will vanish, and the rest of us left behind—I just smile. I’ve been through this drill before. The world didn’t end then, and odds are it won’t tonight.
And if by some miracle the virgins really do take off for Mars this evening?
Well—don’t bother saving me a seat.
Vive la différence!
Recovering from Silence
I watch the women in my life — and who could resist? Each a marvel, her own constellation of strengths and mysteries. What strikes me most is their uncanny attunement: they know when something is right, and when it is not. Perhaps this is why their lives, more often than ours, run longer — they listen to themselves.
These days I find that same listening rising in me. My history, long buried in hidden folds, presses forward and names itself. The fiftieth anniversary of my marriage to Beth, my late wife, has brought me into strange country. Difference is not only what I admire in others; it is what I now confront in myself.
For years I kept my inner dialogue under lock. Sadness and joy alike I carried in silence. When I remarried, I spoke Beth’s name, but I hid my grief. I feared it would wound my wife to know sorrow still haunted me, so I consigned memory to the shadows. Silence gave sorrow room, but never joy.
Now the landscape shifts. What was once rolling and familiar has grown sharp and perilous. The gentle curves of remembrance have narrowed into hairpin turns; the easy hills have broken into sudden ridges, blind crests, and heart-stopping overlooks. Change no longer waits at a distance; it walks beside me.
I have wept more in the last month than in decades past. But the tears are welcome, because in speaking aloud — in sharing what I once held back — grief no longer stands alone. Joy has stepped out of hiding to take its place beside sorrow. And together they travel with me, companions at last.
Women are sometimes faulted for their sensitivity, their willingness to notice change within. But I am learning this is not theirs alone. It is human. And that discovery — that I too can listen, can open, can live — is the real difference.
Vive la différence!
On a whim... 