Green pastures yet unseen - A new year reflection
Image by ChatGPT inspired by Katie’s reflection
“They reached into the place in my heart that I’d been guarding and did two things at once: they comforted me and also unsettled me.”
Sometimes a line of a poem or hymn can open something deep within us - offering comfort, challenge, or a glimpse of hope we didn’t know we needed.
In this reflective piece, Katie shares how a familiar hymn met her in a moment of resistance, weariness and trauma, and how its words gently invited her towards a different way of being with God.
Katie is a writer who explores faith, trauma, and healing through storytelling. She hopes to use her journey to help others find gentler ways of connecting, reflecting and beginning again.
Green pastures are before me
which yet I have not seen.
Bright skies will soon be o'er me,
where darkest clouds have been.
My hope I cannot measure;
my path to life is free.
My Saviour is my treasure,
and he will walk with me.- from ‘In Heavenly Love Abiding’ by Anna Letitia Waring (1850)
I was at church the other day, and if I'm honest I didn't really want to be there. In truth, encountering God has felt like a brick wall for me for a long time.
I felt myself pulling away. I have to admit I often feel like that. My past trauma - especially the experiences I have had as an LGBTQIA+ person in church and with church people - shapes how I see God. For that hour, I felt trapped, boxed in by pews and small talk, wondering how long I could sit still. Not that I could have left: there were too many people about to make a quick exit possible!
We’d had communion and were onto the next hymn. I was singing along, going through the motions, when a line in the song jumped off the page at me:
Green pastures are before me which yet I have not seen.
Even though I have a faith, because of my past I still find it hard relating to God, and these words offered me hope at a time when I was feeling despondent. They reached into the place in my heart that I’d been guarding and did two things at once: they comforted me and also unsettled me. For a moment, they reminded me of my own mortality: I have too much to do, too many unfinished things; I’m not ready to go to the ‘green pastures’ of Heaven!
But then another thought came: what if those words aren't about an ending but about a promise of being led into something vibrant and fresh like I’ve never seen before? The idea felt both gentle and daring. It didn’t erase the past or knock down the defences I have built up over many years of trauma, but it offered a different posture - that Someone accompanies me toward newness, not by forcing me, but by guiding me one step at a time.
I left the church service with an uneasy peace and made some small but significant decisions:
to notice the gentle nudges that come after a song
to try resting before I feel I deserve it
to trust that a ‘path to life’ might mean living at a pace that is measured by presence rather than performance.
The change is slow, but it is real, and I’m learning to walk in it.
A prayer:
Beloved Presence,
Accompany all who seek rest and renewal.
Meet every heart in its guarded places,
widen our vision to green pastures yet unseen,
steady our steps,
and teach us gentleness with ourselves and others.
May hope grow,
paths open,
and love walk beside us
now and in every tomorrow.
Amen
