Steady

 STEADY

“When everything was shifting,
You never moved at all.”

This is the song that has been most prevalent on my playlist these days.

What I never imagined when I wrote “Steady” months ago was how much provenance those words would carry for me now. I wrote about shaking ground, unanswered questions, fragile faith, and a God who does not change.

And then life gave the words weight.

July brought heartbreak as we said goodnight to a furry member of our family who had been intricately woven into our lives for eleven years.

Duncan had been there through the ordinary rhythms of life and through some of our highest highs and lowest lows. He had been there when our hearts were full and when they were broken. He had been there when our spirits felt crushed and when life felt light again.

I don’t know that I can adequately convey the heartbreak of losing him.

And yet, that Sunday, we found ourselves in the place where I have found refuge for most of my life: in church, surrounded by fellow believers, worshiping and serving.

My heart was broken.

But I sang.

I laid what I had at the altar because, truthfully, I didn’t have much strength of my own to offer. I didn’t particularly feel like singing. I didn’t feel like giving some triumphant expression of praise.

But I knew who God had been to me.

And when I didn’t know what else to do, I did what I had done so many times before: I stepped into familiar places of faith.

I sang when I hurt.

I worshiped when I didn’t understand.

I reminded my heart of what it already knew.

And by the end of the set, I had found better footing.

The grief hadn’t disappeared. Duncan was still gone. Nothing about our circumstances had changed.

But something in me had settled.

I knew we were going to be okay.

It is easy to thank God for blessings. It is easy to find gratitude when life looks the way we hoped it would.

It is harder in the middle of hurt.

Harder when you are disappointed.

Harder when you desperately wish your world looked different.

I’ve had a lot of conversations with God since that first weekend.

Ricardo’s birthday will mark three weeks since we said goodnight to our sweet baby. We know it was the right decision. We know we were blessed to have Duncan for as long as we did. We know we were blessed to be able to make the choices we made for him and to be there as he closed his eyes here.

And I like to imagine that when he opened them again, his sisters Lulu and Fancy were waiting for him.

Still, grief is funny.

It isn’t linear.

It ebbs and flows. It catches you in unexpected moments. Some days the memories make you smile, and other days the exact same memory leaves a lump in your throat.

And in some ways, grief stays with us until we get home.

I feel it when I think about the babies we loved who never got to know this place as their home. I feel it when I think about Lulu and Fancy. Now I feel it when I think about Duncan.

Some losses become part of us.

I once read that the depth of our grief is evidence of the depth of our love. There is something profoundly human about that. Grief reminds us that physical separation is real—that these bodies are temporary and that none of us is exempt from death.

It will come for all of us.

But grief has also led me to consider something else.

We spend so much of our lives trying to escape pain.

We pray for the hard season to end. We ask God to change the circumstances, move the obstacle, heal the hurt, open the door, fix the relationship, provide the answer.

And there is nothing wrong with asking.

But lately I’ve wondered:

What if some of the very things we want God to remove are the things He uses to fortify our faith?

What if the valley is shaping something in us that the mountaintop never could?

I wrestle with that because, given the choice, most of us would choose the mountaintop.

I certainly would.

But I’ve been studying valleys in Scripture, and I keep returning to 2 Chronicles 20.

King Jehoshaphat receives word that a massive coalition of armies is coming against Judah. He is afraid. He knows Judah does not have the strength to defeat what is coming toward them.

So he calls the people together and prays.

And tucked inside that prayer is one of the most honest declarations of faith in Scripture:

“We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on You.”

I love that.

Not:

We know exactly how this will work out.

Not:

We understand what You are doing.

Not even:

We aren’t afraid.

Just:

We don’t know what to do. But we know where to look.

God tells them that the battle is not theirs.

They go out to face an enemy they cannot defeat on their own, and before Judah ever has to fight, God causes the enemy armies to turn on one another.

By the time Jehoshaphat and his people arrive, the battle has already been decided.

And then something remarkable happens.

There is so much plunder left behind that it takes Judah three days to gather it.

On the fourth day, they assemble in the valley and bless the Lord.

They name that place the Valley of Beracah—the Valley of Blessing.

The same valley they entered expecting battle became the valley they remembered for blessing.

That has stayed with me.

Because it reminds me that God gets the last word.

Not grief.

Not uncertainty.

Not disappointment.

Not whatever appears to be coming over the horizon.

God.

There is a lot of newness in our lives right now. A lot of changes. A lot of shifting. A lot I cannot see clearly yet.

There are questions I do not have answers for.

There are things I cannot explain except to say:

But God.

I have lived long enough to know that I can change a thousand times.

Circumstances change.

People change.

Plans change.

Dreams change.

Seasons change.

One phone call can change everything.

But God remains.

The same God in the sunlight.

The same God in the rain.

The same God in victory.

The same God in pain.

The same God on the mountaintop is still God in the valley.

And maybe faith isn’t always standing confidently because we understand what God is doing.

Maybe sometimes faith is simply whispering:

I don’t know what to do, but my eyes are on You.

That is where I find myself these days.

Not with every answer.

Not untouched by grief.

Not pretending that difficult things don’t hurt.

Just increasingly aware that underneath everything shifting around me is Someone who has never moved.

An anchor.

A refuge.

A God who has carried me through every season before this one and will carry me through this one too.

Steady.

When my world is shaking.

Steady when my heart is breaking.

Steady in the waiting.

Steady in the fire.

Steady through the wilderness.

And when I cannot hold it all together, He still carries me.

Forever steady.