Grace to Go On, when Footprints Disappear…

Tis grace that brought me safe thus far,

And grace will lead me home.”  John Newton (1772)

In 2009, I took on demanding responsibilities in the Anglican Diocese of Maseno West and the Lake Region Youth Ministry departments, and somewhere in the busyness, months passed without me seeing two of my closest friends, Jay and Ray (not their real names), even after I heard they were badly ailing. On the morning of December 13, 2009, Jay died before I could see him in hospital. The news found me inside a Sunday morning church service at St. Marks Awelo, Siaya. Heavy with guilt, I finally hurried to visit Ray that afternoon.

To say the sight of Ray terrified me is an understatement. Word around was that his appearance frightened visitors. I now understood. His whole body, badly disfigured, was covered with strange, pointed, pear-sized swellings that looked like giant, grotesque warts. His head was twice its normal size. His complexion had strangely darkened. He was partially blind and couldn’t eat, walk, or sit. And no hospital had successfully diagnosed the illness.

Now, mystery demands a name. And my young faith struggled to reconcile what I was seeing with the explanations gathering around it. The dilemma tore at me. My heart ached for my friend, yet I could not bring myself to embrace what many were now summarizing plainly as witchcraft. Even medically knowledgeable people entertained supernatural explanations. Sometimes when the path of medicine closes, people begin walking the path of spirits. Seventeen years later, I am yet to make peace with that moment.

That afternoon we prayed. There was nothing else to do. We held on to faith, and Ray believed too. 

But there was no balm in Gilead. 

A month later, on the night of January 9, 2010, I dreamt that Ray had miraculously healed and we were playing soccer as before. The same night, Ray quietly rested.

I was torn. Did faith fail us? And whose faith? His or mine?

Perhaps one of the harder lessons life teaches is that it owes us no answers to any of our questions. Not every mystery we meet will be explained, and not every battle we fight will be won. 

And is faith always a readily available answer? Is it always the ability to figure life out and to open every door?  The opposite could also be true. Perhaps faith is not always having an answer. Perhaps, sometimes it is simply refusing to stop walking when the answer never comes.

An African saying goes that, “the road does not explain itself to the traveler.”

Maybe faith is when we continue walking. No answers? Walk on. No explanations? Walk on. No open doors? No recovery? No breakthroughs? Keep walking. Even when prayer seems to fall like the African rain pouring in the city, vainly beating the tarmac road where it cannot grow any crop, we only pray it will leave us not without a little strength to rise and keep walking. 

For grace does not need to explain the road in order to lead us home.

Psalm 77:19:

“Your path led through the sea, your way through the mighty waters, though your footprints were not seen.”