TRYING OUTSIDE THE LINES

Grateful this morning for the personal way God keeps his promises. Specifically the one to be with me always, to never leave.

I heard that reiterated by my parents, teachers, youth pastors, mentors, camp counselors all the time growing up. You’re never alone; God is always with you; don’t worry about starting something new on your own, you’re not on your own, God’s there with you. Great advice for first day of school in a new place or the first time away at sleep away camp or moving hundreds of miles away from home for college. At least that’s how I understood it then—never abandoning companion, always available friend.

Simple understanding for a simpler time in life. Before I questioned why I was lucky enough to face different struggles than everyone else. Before I understood why someone could question God’s existence and providence. Before I understood the chasm between knowing love intellectually and intimately.

There are many instances of God’s unescapable reach and incredible love in the Bible. One of my favorites is in Isaiah: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire,  you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior; I give Egypt for your ransom, Cush and Seba in your stead. Since you are precious and honored in my sight, and because I love you, I will give people in exchange for you, nations in exchange for your life. Do not be afraid, for I am with you…”

The waters and the rivers and the fire inevitably come. For me, the ways God shows up then are gentle reminders of his faithfulness, that show me he was there in the “good” times and will remain with me in the difficult ones.

When I was on a mission trip in Jamaica in my first year of college, the same song was played every morning in the place we had breakfast. I didn’t make much note of it, except that it was really the same song every single day that week, catchy enough to recognize but not enough to try to remember, and that our group leader recognized that the lyrics were the cornerstone verse for our first year of the program, “Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.” Didn’t go to Jamaica again, and didn’t hear the song again.

I did have my fair share of struggles during that trip. It was about a year before I was diagnosed with chronic illness and I felt that my body was going haywire that summer. I was not-so-successfully white knuckling a socially unacceptable addiction that was also off limits for girls to get mired in, so there was also that sense of isolation and out-of-placeness. My heart was overwhelmed, but I didn’t recognize it, didn’t know what to name it or how to say so.

Years later, in one of those “laying in bed contemplating the purpose of my existence” moments, at the corner of despair and apathy, wondering how to make it through the day because the facade is definitely going to shatter today…Maria Providence’s song flooded my thoughts. “When my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock that is higher than I.” With me then quietly; with me now unmistakably.

Moments like these make me grateful for being part of the Spice Girls generation because I can take a fragment of a lyric, plug it into a search engine, and find the whole of what I’m looking for. So many songs over so many years in community, I have a hard time remembering them all. But fragments of them sound at the most appropriate moments, in darkness or pain or exhaustion or frustration or fear. Not only does God know what kind of music I like, he knows just how to remind me he is with me. He specializes in me, and I take special joy in that today.