For those who wrestle

Some days…I am Jacob.

Not the Jacob draped in victory, but the one trembling in the dark, dust-streaked and hollow-eyed, face pressed into the dirt of desperation. The one whose name had not yet been changed. The one who wrestled, not out of strength, but out of ache.

I’ve grabbed hold of God with trembling fingers, not out of defiance, but out of survival. Out of grief. Out of a holy kind of stubbornness. “I will not let Thee go,” I whisper, “not until You bless me. Not until You answer me. Not until You see me.”

But the blessing hasn’t come in the shape I prayed for.

And I’m limping now.

I walk differently after these nights of wrestling. I pray differently. I weep deeper. I worship more honestly. The polished words I once brought to the altar have been replaced with groans too deep for language, but somehow still sacred.

Somewhere between the cry and the silence, I’ve discovered that wrestling with God is not the same as walking away from Him.

It’s leaning in.

It’s clinging on.

It’s daring to touch the hem of the Almighty, even if it leaves you wounded.

Because I’d rather limp in the direction of His presence than run full-speed in the opposite direction of His will.

But it costs something.

There are bruises from battles no one saw. There are questions I carry like scars. There are prayers that still echo, seemingly unanswered, in the hollow chambers of my chest. And sometimes I wonder if the only answer I’ve been given… is the limp itself.

Maybe this is the blessing: that I am no longer who I was.

Maybe the limp is proof that I’ve been with God.

Because He does not leave us untouched.

And sometimes, He answers not with a fix… but with a mark.

Somewhere in the ache, there is glory.

Somewhere in the limp, there is legacy.

Somewhere in the wrestling, there is remembrance.

And though I’m still exhausted, soul sore and spirit weary, I am still holding on.

Still clinging to the One who wounds and heals, who breaks and blesses, who wrestles and redeems.

My name may not have changed overnight.

My circumstances may not have shifted.

But I have.

And maybe that’s the real miracle.