Be Still, My Soul

 

I remember once a dear friend telling me her story.  She said that one night her husband had dreamed a dream telling him that they should do something specific in their life.  When he woke after the dream, he knew that it was a message from the Lord so he woke her to tell her that he had had this dream/inspiration.  Then my friend said, “This has been so hard for me.  I had assumed that if we had a revelation from the Lord to do something, I would be able to have a good attitude about it.  But this thing has just been so hard for me.”

I find myself in the same place right now.  I know that this move & job is the right thing for our family—I truly do.  I trust that God knows the beginning from the end and knows what we need.  I have faith in His plan for us, and in His love for us as well.  But oh, this is just SO hard.  So much harder than I could have ever imagined it being.

Thursday I cried all afternoon.  (More about that in a later post, I’m sure.)  The (only) nice side effect of that was that I was pretty tear-free both Friday and Saturday—I think because I was actually out of tears.  But today I found myself weepy again, anxious about being able to find a home in Oregon that we can both afford and love, overwhelmed at how much I still need to do here, and sad sad sad sad sad at the thought of leaving people I love.

When the intermediate hymn started in church, I started singing without thinking too much about it. 

Be still, my soul; the Lord is on thy side;
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;

“Well,” I thought, “I surely have plenty of grief and pain to bear patiently right now.”  And then I continued singing the next lines.

Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In every change He faithful will remain.

What a perfect message for me in this very moment.  Let God order and provide, because in every change He will be faithful.  He will order, provide, and be faithful.  By that point my not-very-under-the-surface tears had started again, so I stopped singing and read the rest of the verse. 

Be still, my soul; thy best, thy heavenly, Friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

These words could have been written for me in this moment.  I continued reading the next verse, still unable to sing.

Be still, my soul; thy God doth undertake
To guide the future as He has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence, let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul; the waves and winds still know
His voice who ruled them while He dwelt below.

 

By the end of the hymn I was feeling calmer than when we’d started singing—I was even able to sing the last few lines.  And I was thinking “Oh thank you Lindsay for picking that song, because it was certainly a tender mercy to me in that moment when I needed to be reminded,

Be still, my soul…