Fire and Water

“We went through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance.”

Psalm 66:12

The Psalm continues. “Come and hear all you who fear God; let me tell you what he has done for me.”

Come. Let’s sit for a minute. Shift our focus. Take a breath, a break from the heaviness of the world.

Let me tell you what He has done for me.

This morning I awoke to the sound of feet quietly but quickly shuffling to a bathroom. The feet creep back to the room, climb into rumpled sheets, and the next noise, gentle in my ears, is hushed whispers and turning pages of a children’s book. Eyes close, almost sleep, but not quite. And the sound of breath fills my existence, her small but amazingly heavy head lays upon my belly.

Now I sit in a chair while conversations of Pokémon are had in the other room. The clanging of spoon on bowl as the cheerios fill empty morning tummies. The dog. He stares at me knowing he can’t have the cheerios. But he still tries.

The rain, it fell hard through the night, but my head never got wet. My children slept sound under a blanket pieced and quilted together by the nimble, loving hands of a great-grandmother whose love will live beyond her earthly body. Her wisdom something I wish I could bottle and pull out in the years to come.

Dig in deeper. Let me tell you what He has done. Let me tell you what He DOES.

If the world fails, and it will, it has a good track record of doing so, then I have a comfort that does not fail. I have a God who holds it all together. I put my trust in a God who puts the fallen pieces together and creates a mosaic of light and scars and color and joy that results in this beautiful thing that no one saw coming...but He did. He always did. Because, this Father. He sees me. He sees you. He knows us and loves us and pursues us. I have a God who knows.

And yet. There is verse 12. The bit about going through fire and water. Because sometimes, there is a fire blazing. Often times, it’s around us. Sometimes it’s inside of us. Sometimes it’s both. Sometimes it’s as small as an ember, barely perceptible, but the scent of smoke able to permeate nearly every part of us.

Other times there is a rushing water that threatens to pull us under. Heavy on us. Panic just beneath the surface. Wave after wave of pain, doubt, fear, anger, bitterness, hurt, and on and on and on. Insert the water that you wade through. We all have it. We all pass through fire and water. But, when we see it for what it is, it is the fire and the water of the world that makes the beauty of Jesus that much more wonderful. Because, when we set our path, fix our course, choose Him, the pain doesn’t disappear, goodness knows it doesn’t disappear, it just fades. It fades into the background of a God who knows how the pain will one day finally end. We still tread the water, we still walk through the fire, but the Rescuer, we know, is keeping us afloat and providing us the oxygen we can’t live without.

And then, one day....He brings us to a place of abundance. There is no loss when we trust in God. Our vision of a place of abundance may not be what we thought it would be, but if it’s God’s abundance, the sweetness that it brings is more than we could ever ask or imagine. The beauty He shows us; the grace; the mercy; the forgiveness. It’s all there. His love is never withheld, we just have to accept that it is, in fact, there. It was there all along, and it will be until the end.