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If You’re Going to Sink

It is the lead apron the dental hygienist puts on me before she takes x-rays of my teeth.

Heavy, this grief I wear now.

I feel the weight of it every morning when I wake up and try to get out of bed –sadness at the loss of my dad and over all the veins of change it means for me and my family.

So heavy.

During the day it presses me down into a chair, and I can’t get up.

Sometimes I feel I’m sinking with the pain of it.

Do you feel like you are going to sink? -christyfitzwater.com

But the Spirit sits in front of me, forearms resting on his legs, and says to me, Give thanks.

It’s so hard, I say.

Yes, but this is what God wants you to do.

He holds out another lead apron. Here, put this on instead.

It takes all my energy –all the strength I can muster to lift the apron of grief and hand it to him. Makes my arms shake.

I grab hold of the apron he offers. It rests on me one act of thankfulness at a time. 

Thank you for heaven.

Thank you for your merciful rescue of sinful men.

Thank you for the assurance I will hug my dad’s neck again, if I can just be patient a while. 

The weight of God’s goodness presses down on me -submerges me into truth.

I sink into hope and a bottomless love.

Maybe you would like to hum this old hymn with me all day (written by Edward Mote):

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand.

When darkness veils His lovely face,
I rest on His unchanging grace;
In every high and stormy gale
My anchor holds within the veil.
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand.

His oath, His covenant, and blood
Support me in the whelming flood;
When every earthly prop gives way,
He then is all my Hope and Stay.
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand.

When He shall come with trumpet sound,
Oh, may I then in Him be found,
Clothed in His righteousness alone,
Faultless to stand before the throne!
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand.

3 Comments

  1. That lead blanket is self-protective, a defense against the penetrating rays that pass would through us and expose us to harmful effects. The blanket of praise that The Spirit offers is light-weight and white,clean, allowing the joy of The Lord to penetrate us and to radiate through us. The world around us can see it, but we…we get to experience it.
    Loving you as you’re loving Him. Praying for you and me as I think of the 2year anniversary of my mom’s home going. Not every day is easy, but every day is good.

  2. Thank you for writing this article. I too have a heavy heart today because if life’s circumstances. This morning I mediated on the scripture ,” on the night Jesus was betrayed He gave thanks”. In the darkest hour of His life He too gave thanks and then they sang a hymn. We must give thanks and sing until the breakthrough comes. God bless.

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