For When Fingers are too Frail to Cling to Him

“Why me?”

I said the words. There you have them world. In all their authentic, God-questioning glory, hands-raised-appraisingly-to-the-sky: “Why me?”

Even in that moment of panicky text to my boyfriend, who I’m sure wanted nothing more than to hold me from 1,200 miles away, I was not questioning “Why.” I wasn’t questioning Him, or His journey, or His plan. It was me. Because I am nothing. I do not go to church as regularly as I should, I did not read my Bible every day. I was, in every definition of my own term, a bad Christian.

But we all are. Moses had a temper problem; Miriam was jealous; David a murderer. My parents have fortified me in their images nearly every day since I found out, though the nagging remained. Yes, they had flaws. But they were Moses, Miriam, and David. Biblical characters who freed souls and spoke directly to Him. I am me. I am nothing. I am a college girl put on Earth for Him, by Him, who does so little for Him. As were they. God chose the Moses’, Miriam’s and Noah’s people not in spite of their imperfections and stumbles before Him, but because of them. He takes delight in how we overcome our stumbles, like my father when I used to tumble towards him as a toddler. Each time I fell, I pressed on without reprieve to reach Him. And now I do the same.

The Lord upholds all who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down

My brother, ever the silent beam of support, lifted his eyes in the middle of whatever Marvel movie pound-down was happening last night, and immediately drew to my side as he saw me silently cling my boyfriend’s teddy bear, tears streaming down my face. I do not always speak in tears, and in that moment I was speaking to God, but Cade came anyway. “I’m scared too,” he whispered, his head supporting mine from the side and thin fingers twisting into my own trembling ones. “You’ll always be my little brother.” “You’ll always be my big sister.”

We’ve never been a pair for more words than were necessary, but the silent strength of God he emanated in the moment braced my soul. He prayed over me, without my words necessary to tell Him what I needed. Again, he could tell: I was tired, and stressed, and he put his hands around my fingers to help me cling into God again. God chose me because I am nothing, because he will build me up to spread his light and become a warrior in His name. And here, clinging to a boy weighing fifty pounds less than myself, I felt the strength and anchor of God come through me.

My mother came into the room again, laundry in hands, and saw us clutched in a praying embrace. She, too, sat at my side, surrounding me in Him. This is when He took my hands and pulled me back to Him, reminded me of how blessed I am. I cannot see the ways in the wilderness ahead of me He is making yet, but I know He has my path laid out. He will see me through this wilderness In these moments when I falter in my faith, when I cannot perceive the newness He is building up in me, He sends me His body to keep me clinging. Moses needed Aaron, Ruth needed Naomi. God sent us His body to keep us to Him, and I felt every ounce of His blessings as they lifted me back up to Him last night.

To my momma, who held her hand to my back when I cried in pain, who’s delicate fingers I have fallen asleep holding each night since my surgery, who has never left my side, “Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.” -Ruth 1:16 You are the Proverbs 31 woman God blessed me with, and my leaning post in every shaky step of my journey.

To Cade, a rock on which God has built a solid faith. I know you will be facing this storm with me, though you do it with a resolute force. “But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit. -Jeremiah 17:7-8″ Give me his strength when you know I am failing.

To my daddy, who grinned with red-rimmed eyes and wrapped his bear-paw around my IV-hooked hand as I was in recovery and cried blubbery tears when I whispered “Hi, daddy,”: “Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates.” Keep holding my hands and pulling me to God, holding me up against the waves of the world.

And, finally, I am reminded of a C.S. Lewis quote, a lion of God like my own great-grandfather, who I have felt countless times on this journey, his hand on my shoulder.

“The more we let God take over, the more truly ourselves we become – because He made us. He invented us. He invented all the different people that you and I were intended tfo be..It is when I turn to Christ, when I give up myself to His personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own.” 

I have known all along “all the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be.” It is in this complete stripping of my path God has shown me my true spirit: one of power, of love, of self-discipline through Him. I only wished I had found His grace sooner. learned to focus on the Light ahead, for we are truly all awash in it.