I know it’s that time of the year—the time when my lungs usually revolt and refuse to take in (and expel) the prescribed amount of oxygen.  I’m taking steps to stay healthy.  And, in case I fail at that, I’ve filled my prescriptions.  The rescue inhaler is easily at hand for when it will be required again.

This was different.

Certainly, I couldn’t breathe.  Still, I didn’t reach for my inhaler.  It would have done no good.

We had just heard the news of a tragedy in a young family we love.  A beautiful little girl was dead, and her father had been carried away in a flash flood.

I couldn’t breathe. 

In my mind, I saw that beautiful little girl standing on a church platform last Christmas, her two older sisters singing a lovely duet while she just stood smiling beside them in her pretty satiny dress.

She tried.  She really did. 

She tried just to stand there quietly, but it couldn’t be done.  Before they finished, she was dancing, throwing her hair from side to side and moving her hands and feet to the music.  And, when they stopped singing, she bowed to the audience and, pointing her toes as she went, danced down the steps from the stage.

I spoke to her mom after the program and told her it was perfect.  Perfect.

She laughed apologetically and explained that the two older girls had worked up the song, but to keep the peace had allowed the sweet little one to come up on stage with them. So, she danced.  Because she couldn’t sing.

She’ll never do it again.  I thought about that and I couldn’t breathe.  Perhaps, I’m not the only one.

Another friend reminded us of a song today, one that speaks again and again of the goodness of God.  Running after us, it says. 

“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.”
(Psalm 23:6, KJV)

I’ve heard the words for as long as I can remember.  They’re meant to be comforting.  And yet, I can’t help but ask the question little Gretel asked in The Sound of Music when singing about her favorite things wasn’t helping any.

“Why don’t I feel bettah?”

It doesn’t feel like goodness and mercy are following right now.  Sometimes, if I’m honest, it feels just the opposite.

But then, I remember words I last heard from the lips of the sweet girl’s daddy, not many months ago now.  He—not a preacher—gave one of the most powerful sermons I’ve ever heard, on his favorite book of the Bible, Habakkuk.

A soul-ish book, he called it.  One we need to hear with our inner being and not just our heads.  He had much to say about the words of the prophet, but these I want to remember, especially now, when I’m tempted to be directed by my feelings:

“The Lord is in His holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before Him.”
(Habakkuk 3:20, KJV)

And, perhaps it’s time for me to do just that. 

But before I do, two things:

The first is, I wonder if you noticed I forgot to finish the verse from the Twenty-third Psalm above.  It’s something I tend to do when I’m thinking with my emotions and not my soul. I forget that there is more.

Really.  More.

“And I shall dwell in the House of the Lord forever.”

And second, remembering that hope-filled truth, I begin to breathe again as I see the beautiful little girl dancing for her Savior.  But then I remember that she gets to sing now, too.

She gets to sing.

With her daddy, she gets to sing.

One can almost hear it from here. Beautiful music.

Goodness.

Mercy.

Following us.

All of our lives.

 

“Yet I will rejoice in the Lord!
    I will be joyful in the God of my salvation!
The Sovereign Lord is my strength!
    He makes me as surefooted as a deer,
    able to tread upon the heights.”
(Habakkuk 3:18-19, NLT)

 

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2022. All Rights Reserved.