A young man I know, recently said of his mother as she was taken by ambulance to the hospital with a possible stroke, “This can’t be happening! She’s my rock!” Admittedly, this was spoken in shock before a small group of neighbors, but all the same, what was he communicating? His dad had passed away a few years earlier, so she was his sole parent, the strong one (on whose strength he drew), she was the dependable one (when he was in need), she was the wise one (whose advice drew top marks from him – well, most of the time). As long as these constants remained, he felt secure and free to branch out and experience life. But without her sterling qualities readily available, he felt vulnerable, felt the weight of needing to become strong and dependable and wise – on his own. It was destabilizing! (Mom update – not a stroke and she’s fine now).
This story reminds me of the many times (after a teenage son’s suicide, a mother’s diagnosis of ‘terminal,’ after the announcement that a spouse wants a divorce, after a young spouse’s stroke. . . ) I’ve heard that same anxious phrase: “This can’t be happening!” It’s always a destabilized cry to turn back the clock, to make this problem just disappear, to hear someone say it’s going to be OK, or maybe, have someone, like most parents of little children will do, hold them and pat them soothingly on the back, saying, ‘There, there, I’m here.’ In fact, I doubt we ever completely outgrow that wanting, that reassuring touch, relieving our angst, figuratively drying our tears, and offering us some ice cream.
‘The Lord is my strength and my song; . . .’ sang the Israelites after the miraculous passage through the Red Sea and the destruction of their former captors. Exod. 15:2, NLT. Those two words, ‘strength’ and ‘song,’ are two intangibles and the Israelites were saying not only that the Lord is strength and that the Lord is song, but that He Himself isthat for them. In Him, in other words, the Israelites, too, were ‘strength’ and ‘song.’ Two solid, unchangeable givens that swept away the debris cluttering their foundation, keeping them from seeing that they were living their lives upon the joy of the Lord. Not bad news for us, either. PD