Overwhelmed...

“When my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock that is higher than I…” Ps 61:2

Some days can be overwhelming. You know, those days that threaten to swallow you whole, making you feel brittle and breakable, virtually drowning despite your desperate attempts to stay afloat. It is at those times I find myself wanting to cry out like the people of Zion in Isaiah 49 “Yahweh (God) has forsaken me. Yahweh has forgotten me.” Yet I fully recognize that my insufficiency, exhaustion and weakness all stem from one root problem.

Me.

Too much of ME trying to juggle it all, be everything to everyone, fix every problem, and attempt to “make it all happen”. Trying…and failing…spectacularly.

I need to replace the ME with HIM.

My soul cries out its need for more of him. To be assured that he is with me, that I am not alone in this overwhelming moment.

And he never fails me. Just like he comforted and reassured the people of Zion after they lamented their forsaken woes, he tells me “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will never forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before Me.” Is 49:15-16

I am engraved on the palms of His hands…this made my heart skip and breathlessly whisper…

Jesus

This is the image, the proof, he used to awaken faith in the doubting heart of Thomas (Jn 20:27) ….his hands…his pierced hands…. engraved hands.

I am engraved on HIS hands.

No sharpie marker here. No ink from a tattoo that fades. Engraved. Literally, “to cut or carve into” (per Webster’s dictionary). Permanently. Forever.

And if that wasn’t enough to calm my doubting heart he echoes this promise to me over and over again “I will never leave you or forsake you.” Josh 1:5, Deut 31:7 & 8, Jer 1:8, Heb 13:5 … I think you get the point.

So the howling winds of exhaustion and beating waves of striving still, as I sense his hand extend and calm the sea of my heart. I am set right again.

“My mighty rock, my refuge is Yahweh” Ps 62:7

(…the rock that is higher than I)

~Selah~