Oh, the places you’ll see…

On a recent drive to and from Georgia we saw the following plates represented on cars driving along the interstate with us:

Massachusetts
Connecticut
Michigan
Ohio
Missouri
Texas
Indiana
Kentucky
Illinois
Tennessee
Florida
Georgia
Alabama
Maine
Oklahoma
Wisconsin
New York
Mississippi
Louisiana
Arkansas
Iowa
Pennsylvania
New Jersey
South Carolina
Virginia
Utah
West Virginia
U.S. Government
Ontario
Quebec
Puerto Rico

And a U-haul from Newfoundland (didn’t see the plate on the U-haul).

Oh, the places you’ll see…

On a recent drive to and from Georgia we saw the following plates represented on cars driving along the interstate with us:

Massachusetts
Connecticut
Michigan
Ohio
Missouri
Texas
Indiana
Kentucky
Illinois
Tennessee
Florida
Georgia
Alabama
Maine
Oklahoma
Wisconsin
New York
Mississippi
Louisiana
Arkansas
Iowa
Pennsylvania
New Jersey
South Carolina
Virginia
Utah
West Virginia
U.S. Government
Ontario
Quebec
Puerto Rico

And a U-haul from Newfoundland (didn’t see the plate on the U-haul).

I am not alone

Psalm 13
For the director of music. A psalm of David.

How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
and every day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?

Look on me and answer, O LORD my God.
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death;
my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”
and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

But I trust in your unfailing love;
my heart rejoices in your salvation.
I will sing to the LORD,
for he has been good to me.

New International Version

I have wondered of late what God has to do with me. For well over a year now I have been looking for a place to serve him, and for well over a year I have had nothing but bitter disappointments. Then Ron came along and gave me a slap in the face (see an earlier post). I didn’t change over night, but I started wondering.

In the mornings at work, before I start my day, I have begun opening up the Bible and reading wherever it falls. Sometimes its deliberate – reading through a certain book a chapter a day. But lately I have been in the Psalms, reading here and there. And that’s where I found that David felt the same as me. He, too, had dark thoughts that he “wrestled with”. He, too, demands answers from God. And he, too, realizes that even without the answer he so desperately seeks, God’s love is perfect and unsurpassed and, as he says, unfailing. And so the psalmist turns to worship and praise. He again, in the midst of his circumstances, marvels at just how good God has been to him.

And I found at least one place I belong. I suppose King David, the man who was called the one after God’s own heart, isn’t such bad company.

He, too, didn’t have the answers. He, too, faced circumstances in his life that left him desperate and angry with God. He, too, had moments when he questioned everything he believed. And through the fires of it all, he comes out worshipping. While my greatest fear – that I would lose my faith – has been whispering out loud lately, I know that God is greater, his love runs deeper, his compassions cover broader, and I will come through my own fire worshipping the one who loves me more than I can ever possibly know, and who seeks me more passionately that I could ever imagine. I am not alone. I never have been. I never will be. I do, indeed, belong.

So…

Praise God from whom all blessings flow.
Praise Him all creatures, here below.
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host.
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Amen.

Belonging

I feel very much on the outside. Like I don’t belong.

I met some people who know exactly who they are and what they are doing. Whether or not any group supports them, they are sure that they belong exactly where they are.

I don’t belong in that way.

I met some people who know exactly who they are against. They have been wronged. And those who were wronged have banded together as the “wronged ones”. They know who they are not. They belong.

I don’t belong in that way.

I watched people bow their heads, lift their voices, listen intensely, and know that they were there for a common purpose, doing a common activity, working toward common goals. They belonged to each other and worked with each other.

I don’t belong to them. Not in that way.

I have heard of people who have nothing, who toil for hours on end for a day’s worth of food, not really sure if they will get the same tomorrow. Yet they are comforted by a faith that unites them across time and space to people they have never met and may never know. Somehow, they belong to this cosmic union.

My head says I belong to that. My heart begins to disagree. And for the first time my greatest fear begins to whisper out loud.