Held

It's been a while, it feels good to be back. I didn't fall of the edge of the earth, just got distracted with some travel and other things. Over the past couple weeks I've had plenty of songs, plenty of things I've read, spark something inside...but didn't find time to write about it.

So...today I'm breaking my rule. I said I'd only write about a song, or something I'd read, if I'd actually heard or read it that same day. Today I'm gong to write about a song I heard yesterday while I was on my way to Detroit (shopping, running errands, going to a Tiger's game, etc.) I didn't get home until very late; as much as I wanted to write about it last night, I wanted to sleep more. :)

I've heard Natalie Grant's Held many times over the past year...and I don't like it. I'm still not sure I like it, but when I heard it yesterday it struck a new chord in my heart and mind. In retrospect, maybe the root of my dislike for the song is that the message is so raw, so close to what I've lived, that I just haven't been at a place where I could embrace the truth of it.

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.

No...it's not fair...is it? I had a professor in college who, when students would complain that something wasn't fair, would respond with a simple, consistent, quiet, "Life's not fair, life just is." We all knew it was coming. We all laughed when he said it. I don't think any of us really got it. It wasn't funny. It was a truth that far too many of us just don't experience in our life...until we do. At which point our response is paramount.

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

Bitterness is easy. Bitterness can make us feel like we have control. Bitterness can present itself as a salve...but it's not. It's poison. It's sneaky. It seeps in when we're not looking, when we think we're healing, progressing, getting better...it attacks when we are most vulnerable. It can keep us from seeing, from knowing, truth. It can keep us from experiencing healing. I think bitterness kept me from hearing the message of Held, the message past the pain, past the hurt, the message of being at rock bottom...we are Held...when it's all taken away...when we've been stripped, beaten, and robbed by life...we are Held...when if feels like all we have left is the breath in our lungs...we are Held...

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.

Abba, I bring you my brokenness, I place it at your feet, hold me.