Trials and Truth

The past few weeks have been tough for me. I have found myself feeling overwhelmed, doubting and crying out in grief and pain. And God has been faithful to bring truth, as he always is. He has been gracious to give me friends who long to walk alongside of me even when I am pushing them away. He has been gracious to gently restore truth in the places where I need it.
As I said, I have been reading 1,000 Gifts. I had put it aside for probably a month and picked it back up over the weekend. Yesterday I started reading a chapter I had actually read before but this time around struck me in many deep ways. The following is a section from it. In it she references Exodus. This part of Exodus is following Moses' return from the mountain, where in his absence the people had created idols in God's place. So Moses is doubting what he is doing on this crazy journey, God's plan, angry at the people he is leading for being so weak and fearful, etc... God has told Moses in this conversation"My presence shall go with you, I will give you rest (33:14)" Yet Moses continues to question. Oh, and nobody could see God's face...remember Moses had to veil his face to be in his presence...And prior to this she has been talking about looking back and seeing God, like crossing a bridge and looking in the rear view mirror and realizing it supported you. Okay, now that it is set up a bit here are Ann Voskamp's words:
Exodus 33:22-23 "When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back."
Is that it? When it gets dark, it's only because God has tucked me in a cleft of the rock and covered me, protected, with His hand? In the pitch, I feel like I'm falling, sense the bridge giving way, God long absent. In the dark, the bridge and my world shakes, cracking dreams. But maybe this is true reality: It is in the dark that God is passing by. The bridge and our lives shake not because God has abandoned, but the exact opposite: God is passing by. God is in the tremors. Dark is the holiest ground, the glory passing by. In the blackest, God is closest, at work, forging His perfect and right will. Though it is black and we can't see and our world seems to be free-falling and we feel utterly alone, Christ is most present to us..Then He will remove His hand. Then we will look. Then we look back and see His back."