Isaiah 43:1-3

   "But now, this is what the Lord says-
   he who created you, O Jacob,
   he who formed you, O Israel;
   'Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
   I have called you by name; you are mine.
   When you pass through the waters,
   I will be with you;
   and when you pass through the rivers,
   they will not sweep over you.
   When you pass through the fire,
   you will not be burned;
   the flames will not set you ablaze.
   For I am the Lord, your God,
   the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. ' "
     - Isaiah 43:1-3 (NIV)

     Well, I meant to start an email devotional-type thing to send out about once every two or three weeks, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. And since I'm updating this blog every two or three days, it seems easier to just bring the idea over here than find everybody's email addresses to send it to.

     And I figured I'd just start out with my favorite verse(s) to begin with. God spoke these words to Isaiah, and Israel wasn't in the best spot ever during his time. It was one of those dark places in their history, I think it was a point of the people of Israel's being enslaved and under the rule of some other country. So, through Isaiah, God's reminding the people that even though things look like a mess right then, he's been there before to help them, and he'll continue to do so in the future.

     See how His speech begins, "Fear not"? That's comforting. He knows we, being people, are fearful, we like having some measure of control in our lives, or at least knowing what's going to happen, even if we can't control the events personally. So God's reminding the people of Israel here, and to all Christians generally later on in history, that he's saved us, so we shouldn't be afraid, we should instead trust that He'll work things out for whatever the good is that He's planned for us.

     Then we get to the part about remembering how good God's goodness has been to us, and an assurance that we'll be okay. Water's pretty fluid, it's hard to stand up straight in. Sometimes it shifts unexpectedly, and you have to float or swim. That can kind of parallel to the ordinary frustrations and problems we face most days, it's good to know that He's with us in those times, to help us through those.

   Rivers, well, those are big bodies of water, which are usually deep, and can become extremely dangerous when flooded. Those would be the large crises we run into every once in a while, when we need to learn something that we wouldn't have found out in any other way. Some people's paths through life run through more rivers than others, no matter how often they come through, with God's strength to guide us through, we'll not be swallowed by the waves.

   When you pass through the fire...whew...that's when it's really tough. Fire can help, yes; it can warm a house in wintertime or during a storm, to clear away thorns and thistles from a field to get it ready for planting, to cook food, or to burn trash so it won't pile up and look awful. But that's not the meaning here. Nope, not at all. As one of the three things we can't live without(the others being God and love), we hate it, but we can't exist without it. Why would we fear fire? Because it's so dangerous. It can kill. It can destroy. It can scar. These are the huge, monumental problems we run into, the ones that we measure our growth by. For me, it was a fire, my freshman year of high school, two weeks before Christmas. Electrical surge throughout the house proved too much for the breaker box, and all the wiring was toast. Smoke damage was enormous, but we all got out okay, even the cat. Over the next ten months, we moved an hour away, commuting daily back and forth from the house(which we were rebuilding from the inside out; only the skeleton of framing was the same) to the trailer, picking up whatever parts we needed, and living from deadline to deadline. We learned a lot about home construction, but we learned even more about ourselves, how we react to immense problems that come our way, and about how much grace God has for us, providing people to help in various ways, from demo and wiring to roofing, tile, carpet and putting the woodstain on the stairs. We had a lot of my mom's family nearby, ready to help with whatever was needed, and the folks from our church were huge, aiding in ways incountable. I could go on and on, never quite finishing how great a time of growth this was, how much closer I drew to God. There were a handful of friends to give me updates on the news, or encourage through texts or emails. A lot of my Missouri friends encouraged me, also, each in their own special ways. When I heard a song at camp we were singing for the first time that was based on these verses, right in the middle of that rebuilding process, I just felt such an onrush of thankfulness, an overpowering sense of gratefulness. I started crying. I still can't read these words or sing those lyrics without tearing up, so thankful and amazed at God's grace to us.

     It's been seven years ago today that my grandma died, which is usually pretty tough. I was really close to her, wondered many times what she'd have thought of how my teenage years have gone, wished I could call and talk to her. Had a lot of great memories with her, reading books, going fishing, riding horses, creating stories, even mundane things like shopping trips were exciting and interesting. Once she got cancer, things started to be a little tougher, trying to help as we could, while watching her health slowly slide downhill. She said once that she wanted her grandkids to either remember her in health or else not remember her at all, most of my siblings don't remember her, just as a picture on the wall or in the scrapbook, a name in stories. But I remember, and yes, I remember the dark times near the end, but more often than not I picture the happy times at the farm, and all the good memories I have.

   Would it have been nice to tell excitedly about my getting a job writing for the ONW, or the Free Lance, or OKBlitz? Yes, I'm sure she would have been thrilled for me. Would she be too happy with my growing up? Probably not, but I can't really help that. Would it have been nice to talk when I broke up with my girlfriend three years ago, or when Sport died last summer? Yes, it would have, I've wished I could tell somebody about those kinds of things. She would have loved to hear about the Youth Tour trip, telling everybody in town about me winning it, and then wanting to see pictures and hear stories, some of which she'd pass on to Renee at the Reporter, who would set them down in the paper, getting three or four facts hopelessly(and hilariously) wrong. These shifting puzzle pieces of senior year probably would have found some order if we talked it over, maybe not be quite as confusing as they have been.

   Of course, these are all just conjectures of how I wish things had gone; obviously, that's not how God's script for these years has worked out, so I'm content with what's happened, though my human nature wishes some things could have gone different. And yeah, some parts of my future at the moment loom vast and terrifying, and I'm wondering now(and will when in the middle of them) how I can possibly get through them, but I know that eventually, in some way, they'll lead to my growth as a person and as a disciple of Christ. Yeah, most of my life has been in water(funny, kind of; since I hate swimming in real life), and I've probably had more rivers and fires to get through than most other people, and there's most likely quite a few more along the road, but God will help me get through them, and it'll turn out okay. Might not be what I would have liked, but it will be better, in some way than what I would have planned.