Anywhere But Here

“Is it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have brought us out to die in the wilderness?” [Exodus 14:11]

Tomorrow I will sing at the funeral of an 18-month-old little girl.

Two nights ago her parents, members of our church choir, were getting the trash from their garage to take it to the curb. To do so they have to back out their SUV to make room to get through. When the mother pulled out she didn’t see her two small children behind the vehicle. The girl was killed instantly. Her older brother, just three, witnessed it. The mother is inconsolable with guilt and doesn’t want to live.

Earlier this week I began a new men’s Bible study group. By way of introduction, each man gave a brief account of where they were in their walk with Christ and some personal testimony. A short list included divorce, death of a spouse from alcoholism, childhood abuse, debilitating shame from past mistakes and long-term depression. I left the group that night in stunned silence from all the pain in that room.

These things just punctuate the questions in my own soul right now. I believe in a sovereign God, and I want, I NEED to believe that everything’s going to be all right in His care. But that little girl isn’t coming back. Some of those men, no matter how hard they pray or cry out to God, will have to live with failed marriages or destroyed families.

I know our hope isn’t in this world, but in a sinless, tearless eternity with the God who loves us. So, logically, these kinds of things make me yearn for heaven. I’ve become so soul-sick with this world I just don’t see anything redeeming in it. But, I’m still here. I don’t know why, but I am.

Two years ago I was suffering through a demoralizing job search that had me at the end of my rope. For more than a year I criss-crossed the South for interviews, walking toward open doors that all seemed divinely appointed. And one by one they each slammed shut in the most discouraging and unbelievable ways.

When the call came from a potential employer in late January of last year, it came completely out of the blue — I had long since let it go. Then everything happened very quickly. Before I knew it I was driving a U-Haul to Atlanta, and had to leave so fast to start the new job that I didn’t even have time to say goodbye to friends in Florida.

My directionless trek through a cruel desert was coming to an end, and a new life of healing and restoration of so much that had been lost was on the horizon. When I had already been here a few weeks, I got a call from a job in Denver. Even then, I was ready to go if that’s where the Lord wanted me. But that door closed too, as if to fully confirm I was right where He wanted me.

This was the answer to my constant prayer, which I always recited from scripture like it was written just for me: "They wandered in the wilderness in a desolate way; they found no city to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them. Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble and He delivered them out of their distresses. And He led them forth by the right way, that they might go to a city for a dwelling place." [Psalm 107:4-7]

I knew He could give me a job anywhere. But I didn't want just a job. I needed a dwelling place, a home, where I could put down roots. And He had led me to it.

But everything quickly turned upside down. And what had been like walking across the Jordan to the Promised Land became more like miraculously walking through the Red Sea straight into another wilderness.

It started gradually with the discovery of an unexplainable medical condition a month after my arrival, and snowballed from there. For reasons I'll explain at the end of this post, I'm withholding all the particulars. Suffice it to say, my home, my dwelling place became something so foreign, uncomfortable and frightening I couldn't stand to be in it. Even now there are days I want to leave this place so badly I can taste it. But, I’m still here. He's kept me here.

As I've tried to make sense of where my life is going in this place, the Lord has been gracious enough to meet me where I am and reassure me.

Louie Giglio was recently wrapping up a series called “Lift,” on the Song of Ascent Psalms, 120 through 134. He referenced two verses that I’ve leaned on so often in the last 18 months, Psalm 40 and Psalm 126. About them, Louie said that the most qualified people to exalt the name of Christ and bring glory to God are those who were in a horrible pit, captives who had sown in tears, facing impossible situations.

Of these people those scriptures say "Many will see (God's deliverance) and fear, and will trust in the Lord." [Psalm 40:3] "Then they said among the nations 'The Lord has done great things for them.'" [Psalm 126:2]

For a number of reasons, I had planned on taking this blog for a long walk in the woods and putting her down mercifully. But, in whatever form it may take, I'm going to keep it up so that I can do two things: disclose the obstacles I was facing when I wrote this post — in time; and give God all the glory when He lifts me out of the miry clay and sets my feet upon a rock. It's a declaration of faith, which has hung by a thread lately.

Oddly enough, both Psalm 40 and Psalm 126 mention singing. As often as I had poured over them, I kind of glossed over that before. Though I've been incapable of summoning enough heart to blog, let alone sing, God has given me opportunities to do just that on a platform where I honestly have no business. More than anything, that has confirmed His place for me here in spite of everything else that is so uncertain and anxious now.

I'm sure when I sing tomorrow over the casket of a departed little one (if that will even be possible) I'll want nothing else but to join her and escape the pain. But, for now, He has me where He has me.