Proverbs 3: 5-6

I keep waking up in the middle of the night—a holdover symptom of being hypothyroid for a month that I can’t seem to shake, even now that I’ve been back on Synthroid for 2 weeks now. Sometimes I watch an episode of “House” or the third period of the Ducks game from the night before or something that’s been Tivo-d. Last night I watched an entire movie I’ve always wanted to see—“50 First Dates” with Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore. A few nights ago—once again, in the middle of the night, when I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep--I discovered this gospel music channel and I saw a video of a song called “Held” by Natalie Grant, and I just downloaded it from iTunes because it is so beautiful. Here are the lyrics:

Held
Performed by Natalie Grant
Written by Christa Nichole Wells
Lyrics © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.

Two months is too little.
They let him go.
They had no sudden healing.
To think that providence would
Take a child from his mother while she prays
Is appalling.

Who told us we'd be rescued?
What has changed and why should we be saved from nightmares?
We're asking why this happens
To us who have died to live?
It's unfair.

Chorus:
This is what it means to be held.
How it feels when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive.
This is what it is to be loved.
And to know that the promise was
When everything fell we'd be held.

This hand is bitterness.
We want to taste it, let the hatred know our sorrow.
The wise hands opens slowly to lilies of the valley and tomorrow.

(Chorus)
This is what it means to be held.
How it feels when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive.
This is what it is to be loved.
And to know that the promise was
When everything fell we'd be held.

Bridge:
If hope is born of suffering.
If this is only the beginning.
Can we not wait for one hour watching for our Savior?

(Chorus)
This is what it means to be held.
How it feels when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive.
This is what it is to be loved.
And to know that the promise was
When everything fell we'd be held.

I cannot help but think that God is preparing me for the future—that He is growing my faith during this relatively small trial in preparation for some much larger sorrow in the future. Because I have a long history of being dramatic, loving the dramatic, inviting chaos into my life or, failing that, creating it, I wonder if this suspicion is me—my flesh—being overly dramatic or whether God is preparing me for the future.

Whatever He’s doing, it’s all for His glory. I know that now.

I went to lunch today with 5 other gals from the alto section of the choir at church, and for the first time in a long time, I didn’t get nervous and self-conscious and weird about meeting with a group of ladies. Don’t ask me why—I don’t know why!—but that kind of thing has always made me SOOOO anxious and tense, even if I liked all the ladies. I feel different now. I feel God changing me. I feel God working in my life. I feel God working on my personality. I feel more free. I feel more open to His will. I feel more open in general.

I feel happier.

Several years ago, when I was going through what was then the most heart-wrenching emotional time I’d yet experienced with my then-11-year-old son and his dad, my ex-husband, I relied on this verse every day:

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart; and lean not to your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct your paths.”
--Proverbs 3: 5-6, American King James version

The verse didn’t fail me then, and it isn’t failing me now. The more I trust in the Lord, the more He directs my paths. The less I try to control things, and consequently the more I let Him control things, the easier everything gets.

In church this morning:

“Therefore I will look to the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation: my God will hear me.”
--Micah 7:7, American King James version