The Promise Is....

......"when everything failed, we'd be held".

I heard a song at church the other Sunday. It was a Sunday when I truly didn't know if life would ever get better. I truly believe it was meant for me. The lady singing it didn't know me. I didn't know her, she has never met me. She might have been singing it for some one else, or maybe even for herself. But on that Sunday, God knew I needed to hear it. I was held, but had forgotten.

The chours of "Held"is this:

This is what it means to be held.
How it feels when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive.
This is what it is to be loved.
And to know that the promise was
When everything fell we'd be held.

I have been a Christian since I was 8. I have been in church since I was born. I was blessed (pronounced in the south as "bless-ed") to have Godly parents that raised me to love and trust the Lord.

Somewhere along the way, I forgot the promise. It isn't that life will be perfect. God never said that life will always be "peaches and cream". He promised healing, but not necessarily on Earth or when WE want it. He never promised pain and anguish wouldn't enter our lives.

His promise is that when, "everything fell we'd be held". When life spins out of control we are tight in His hands. When we are sick, when we loose a loved one, or when the pain seems like death itself....we are held.

The payment for sin is heartache, trials, and hurt. The only thing different for a Christian is that we are lovingly held and have the promise of heaven. That is the difference between living life full of hope and just struggling from one heartache to the next.

James 1:2 states, "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance."

I will admit, I find it hard to consider trying times "pure joy". I even struggle with understanding why such a loving God allows terrible things to happen to His children. I believe to my core that God is the only God. That Jesus died on a cross for my sins and that only through Jesus can I be saved. I believe that He can heal and preform miracles at anytime, but understanding why He doesn't is really hard for me.

This is what it is to be loved.
And to know that the promise was
When everything fell we'd be held.

I need to just praise the Lord that, "gave and the Lord has taken away" Job 1:21. I just need to remember that the promise was given to us by a Father who allowed his Son to die on a cross. That promise is that we are deeply loved and tightly held at all times, even when everything else falls away....He is there.

I pray today, dear readers, that you are "held" and if you aren't....that you find your way back to the God that created the heavens and earth.