Crossing the Bottom of the Sea

I left my beloved island in Alaska last week. I miss it already.

This morning I woke up in Denver. I’m not supposed to be here. I’m not supposed to be sleeping on the couch of my beloved son Noah and his new wife Lizzie. I’m supposed to be reunited with my family in Spokane, Washington. But a delayed flight from Grand Rapids (Thank you, United Airlines!) delivered this 24 hour gift. I haven’t seen Noah and Lizzie for almost a year, since their wedding.

This will be my family’s life these next 8 months, every day setting off in a car, train, boat or plane, and ending up somewhere else at the end of the day. Maybe somewhere completely unexpected. But isn’t this the simple truth: whether we’re on a year long journey or simply swinging our legs over the edge of our bed to plant our feet on the cold floor of a new day----Every day is a trek into the unknown. And that can be scary. Especially now.

We now know the truth:

we can stay home most of our lives cause we’re afraid of flying;

we can avoid subways and trains because of the bombings;

we can keep our kids home from school to protect them from armed intruders  

(today the Kodiak High School was in complete lockdown after a threat);

              and one day,  to reward ourselves for our safe but claustrophobic life, we take our kids to a music festival for a few fun hours of country music and . . . . a man is waiting by the window with an arsenal of guns.

So we go out into the wide world because we must. And, because of something that happened thousands of years ago----------the spectacular defeat of Pharoah’s army and the march across the dray-as-bones bottom of the sea. That day, God defeated the most powerful army on the face of the earth on behalf of a ragged horde of helpless slaves. That day God set all the captives free.

 The Hebrews were ecstatic. This god was nothing like the Egyptian gods they had known about for 400 years. Slaves win? The mighty are drowned? The imprisoned are freed? They could do nothing less than writethe first praise song recorded in the Scriptures. Can you see the glad riot it must have been? Half a million women following Miriam, dancing with tambourines, with feet kicking high and voices laughing and loud:

“I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously;
    the horse and his rider[a] he has thrown into the sea!
 

They sing and shout and dance all the way to the ending: 

“You have led in your steadfast love the people whom you have redeemed;
    you have guided them by your strength to your holy abode.
 You will bring them in and plant them on your own mountain . . .
 The Lord will reign forever and ever."

 

And on it goes today. Our rescue from slavery to freedom is already accomplished. And still, deliverances come to us every day! Have you seen them? Sometimes you can’t miss them—you and your family are saved through a devastating cyclone and flood. Just before the rent was due, an envelope came with just the amount needed. The bullet missed the vital organs by an inch.

And so many times they are tiny and tender: Today my lunch with my faraway son. The Uber driver who took me to the airport---our conversation about forgiveness, this heartbreak she has just endured. Yes of course SHE was the one that came to pick me up.  At the Breathe Writer’s conference this weekend, a friend surprised me with my favorite candy and a card with a quote exactly for this year:

I have no tambourine right now, but I have a pen. So I write this:

Every morning we are all travelers (and secretaries), waking and treading a trail into hours and moments, valleys and places we’ve never been before. We don't have to be afraid. Every day our God leads “in steadfast love the people He has redeemed.”

And even when the bullet doesn't miss,

                      and the flood sweeps us away,

we’ll wake on that mountain, God’s holy house,

          now ours as well,

a tambourine in one hand and a pen in the other:

And we will sing to the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously!

 

Amen.

Your turn with the pen! (Either that or post a video of you dancing with a tambourine?)

One tiny or huge deliverance that came to you this week?