Leaning In

 

The hills around us are white with snow and the ice continues to extend its treacherously invisible fingers across steps and roads. I lift my eyes to the hills … knowing my help is in the name of the Lord. My mother’s favourite psalm.

What a comfort it is to know that she has such a powerful word to cling to during these lonely and isolating days. Confused by the invasiveness of the weekly Covid tests, her one consolation is the Lord. He is all she needs: it is me who needs to keep that in mind when I hear her distress on the phone.

‘Oh God, you are my God: earnestly I seek you, my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you in a dry and weary land where there is no water.’ My favourite psalm, a powerful encouragement when my sister died, and one I find myself leaning into now. I recommend it, for all those who are finding the dreary or anxious or grieving days long and empty, for all who feel they are in a dry and weary land without water.

I love that psalm because in it, David disciplines his thoughts to remember the love and past actions of God, to raise his voice to praise the glory of God, and to declare that ‘because your love is better than life, my lips will praise you’. ‘Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings.’

May we all shelter in the shadow of our loving Lord today, and raise our voices – however weak and warbly they may be – because God’s right hand upholds us.