Leaning on His Everlasting Arms

“Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?  If I go up to the heavens, you are there, if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.  If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.  If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will hide me, and the light become night around me,’ even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day,  for darkness is as light to you.”  Psalm 139:7-12 (NIV)

I’ve had a number of instances lately, which remind me that our daughter is now an adult.  She makes choices that sometimes have me wondering, and worrying.  But it is her life and not mine, and her choices, whether good or bad, are hers alone to make.  Just because I have some 30 years on her does not mean I know the best choices for her, now or later.  This is the threshold I am crossing—the gradual releasing of my daughter to the sky of her own life.  Though challenging, there is some sense of relief in trusting that God makes all things good according to his will.  That does not mean that he makes all things good without pain.  Often, pain must precede the making of good.  The real struggle, then, is leaning on that trust, daily…leaning on the everlasting arms, as the hymn says.  Not just during the times free of pain and disappointment, but leaning--heavily, perhaps--on Him within the storms.

I get great comfort in leaning against my husband’s shoulder when sitting next to him in church, or elsewhere for that matter.  Should I not get even greater comfort in leaning on His everlasting arms? Before I can lean, though, I must remember He is there to be leaned upon. And that takes trust, because I can’t always “feel” His presence, as I do my husband’s shoulder when sitting next to him.

This is where my daily quiet time come in.  This routine has been a staple of my daily life for years now.  Often I don’t feel like reading scripture or praying, and during those times, I may not do either.  But I always “show up”.  Like the popular Nike slogan a few years ago, I “just do it”. And it’s been during my quiet time through years of highs and lows that I am learning (this will always be present tense as we never stop learning) how to trust God.  Even when in the throes of some depressive state, or obsessive worry, I “show up”.  Sometimes I’m even angry that God has the “nerve” to always be there, especially when there is something I wish to hide!!  I know what the psalmist means when he wrote the scripture above so long ago.

So, Lord, I must accept that even if I want to get away, You are there…and if that is true for me, it’s true for my daughter also. You are there with her in all her choices, good and bad, just as You have been with me through all my choices (and believe me, they “ain’t all been good!”).  Thanks be to God for His everlasting arms!


Here's a poem I began a couple of years ago, then completely re-wrote today!  I felt it went along with today's post.

Songbird

The first time was also the last time

my first-born and youngest, wrapped

like no other, hatched

in our hearts and home

and then, one day, flew away,

to a sky of her own,

singing a singular melody,

naming all the dreams, like clouds

around her.