We shall not cease from exploration.
And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started
and know the place for the first time. T. S. Eliot.
Where was my starting block for this nine month race?
It was sitting in the car in the radiology parking lot, before hearing my biopsy results. I asked God for a verse, because I knew the results were going to be cancer. They had called me minutes before, asking me to appear in person to hear my biopsy results. I wasn't going to leave the car until I had a verse. A verse to hold in my heart the entire time. The verse He gave me was
Be still, and know that I am God. Psalm 46.
have held onto that verse for nine months. I have it posted over my computer at my desk, I have had Psalm 46 printed out and sitting on my bedside table, I have had this verse on the bottom of my e-mails for the past nine months. I have seen this verse and repeated it at least a dozen times each day. I have thought about it for hours.
The "Be Still" part happened. We knew that would. We all see that. I was physically tired, made to feel ill from surgeries, chemo, radiation. Had to stop my life and take a break. My soul was able to take a breather as well. Not as much stimulus coming in, allowing for more thought time and inner conversations. I could meditate, think, pray, roll an idea around my mind for hours and hours. Uninterrupted.
The "and Know that I am God" part is what took the nine months for me to see; I hope I will be understanding this part more deeply each year.
Reading the entire Psalm, it is a really powerful Psalm. I have copied it at the end of this entry. This isn't a Psalm about meditation and a mild-mannered middle aged woman like me doing a workbook on Jesus in the safety of my light blue upholstered chair with a cup of tea sitting next to me. No, this is a Psalm about the ONLY true source of life and light and love in the world. Who has the WHOLE UNIVERSE in the palm of His hand. The point of reference is HUGE natural disaster or nations at war.
God is so powerful that when the very ground you are standing on crumbles without a moment's notice, and when something you knew to be the very definition of solid and trustworthy starts to disintegrate and slide beneath the surface into the darkness, well, God is patiently waiting for you to look to Him. We are told to Be Still. In the midst of earthquakes and tsunamis, war and suffering, sickness and health. Be Still, and look to Him.
You know, that is how I have felt so many times, especially at the start of the past nine months. Sitting hearing the doctor say It's cancer, as if the very ground I am standing on is crumbling. Deciding between mastectomy or lumpectomy, as if mountains are sliding into the crashing ocean. It is all falling apart, my life, my marching forward, many-faceted life. What power can put this out of control train back on the track?
God.
Know that He is the center of all we know, the creator of all life, the source of all love and light.
What does "know" mean?
To know an idea is to understand it in your brain. But it is more. To know is to have that idea move from the academic memorizing of it as a fact, to the deep seated understanding of it as a three dimensional substantial truth. To see its depth and width and height and its colors. To know is to have it become a part of you.
God wants me to know that He is God. Really know this. Know it so much that it becomes a part of me. That I live every day as if I know HE is the absolute truth, the most solid of solid and powerful of powerful.
The more I know that He is God, the more I see that I want the King of the Universe, the Creator and Savior of Man, the Author and Finisher of my faith to be, well, everything in my life. I want Him to be who I say hello to when I wake up. I want to praise Him and thank Him first thing. I want to let Him guide my steps and my thoughts all day long. I want Him to fill me with His Spirit and His Love. I want to take refuge in Him, to be used by Him, to be restored by Him and to be guided by Him.
How in the world do I do THAT? Well, since He is so powerful, it is simple. Ask Him to help me. The only part I have to do it ask, and then be still so I can hear His answers, all day every day. Just obey.
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Psalm 46. A song.
1 God is our refuge and strength,an ever-present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
3 though its waters roar and foam
and the mountains quake with their surging.
4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy place where the Most High dwells.
5 God is within her, she will not fall;
God will help her at break of day.
6 Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;
he lifts his voice, the earth melts.
7 The LORD Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.
8 Come and see what the LORD has done,
the desolations he has brought on the earth.
9 He makes wars cease
to the ends of the earth.
He breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
he burns the shields with fire.
10 He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.”
11 The LORD Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.
