As I sit here sipping my coffee, enjoying the last few days of winter sunshine that beams through the double glass doors and across my dining room table, I can’t help but hum a little tune and summon visions from decades ago from the depths of my memory. Flashbacks of Karen leading the Sunday school class in song, her wide-brimmed glasses raising every so slightly as they ride with her big smile against the top of her rosy cheeks.
“He’s got the whole world in His hands. He’s got the whole world in His hands. He’s got the whole world in His hands. He’s got the whole world in His hands.”
The tune like an earworm on my mind.
Do you watch ‘This Is Us’? If you do and did not catch the season finale last Tuesday, fear not, I am not about to ruin anything for you. And, if you find yourself reading my blog right now, with no clue what ‘This Is Us’ even is, then please find a TV with On Demand RIGHT NOW. Just kidding. No judgment (okay slight judgment) here.
In the finale, Randall is giving a speech at his sister Kate’s wedding. “It’s taken me 37 years to accept the fact that there is absolutely zero point in trying to control the future,” Randall says. “Cause nobody knows where we’ll be. Not even a year from now.”
And, that is the absolute truth. Next year, next month, even tomorrow is not a given, and yet with that knowledge, it still hits us by surprise when devastating news shatters our lives knocking the wind out of our sails or our feet out beneath us.
I was talking to someone who was given a bit of a health scare recently. Finding a lump in her breast, she said before her mammogram, “I dread tomorrow, for I fear my life will change forever in that instant.” That fear is what drives us crazy and many times drives those to their knees to pray.
My family too is no stranger to life’s unexpected turns and the darkness and despair one feels when your world changes in an instance. In the fall, my husband suffered an eye injury. A story I shared here on the blog. While, we are grateful, faithful, and blessed, the news of his sudden partial sight loss was traumatic and the fear of what life looked like for us in the days, and months ahead were raw and new during each doctor’s appointment as more was revealed. I prayed for God to hold us in his hands. To wrap us up and scoop us in and carry us through.
So do not fear, for I am with you;
do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you;
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
Isaiah 41:10
While those days felt dark, there also was so much light and hope. Small signs from above allowed me to breathe in the madness, and constant season of holding our breath. Like the time, we traveled in the thick heavy fog to one of Nathan’s daily appointments and with the radio down low, I prayed for a sign that we would be okay. Within moments, through the thick fog, a cross appeared in the distance along the right-side of the highway. I was mesmerized, eyes locked at this single cross that seemed so clear in the fog, all while I struggled to sometimes even see the highway lines. As we got closer, I realized it was the back structure of a sign addressing the opposite lane. The two pieces of wood, one a signpost and the other, a structure to hold the sign itself, formed a cross. I chuckled as we drove by and then realized, it was my sign. The cross was God, showering me with a sense of peace. While the fog was real and dense in the air outside our car, it too was the greatest foggy season our lives had ever endured, yet He was constantly there holding us.
Sometimes it takes heartache and sadness for us to look up with open hearts and mind, needing Him to hold our hands and guide our way. But the truth is we are all in good hands, each and every day. When I think back to our season last fall, I tend to think of the moments I felt more spiritually connected to God than any other time in my life, and it usually is because of moments like the story I shared above when I felt His love and guidance through signs from above. The reality is if we look even harder, God is holding us in his hands, even when we don’t ask him to. He is holding us through the happiest moments, regretful decisions, joyous occasions, sorrow, times of ultimate need, and even on times we may have ignored Him.
He’s got the whole world in his hands, including your whole world. As Isaiah 41:10 reads – “Fear not, for I am with you.” Cast your worries today away, for we all can take a deep breath and release in knowing, we are all, always in good hands.
