LIFTED

I dropped my parents off at church last Sunday. It kept them from having to walk through the large parking lot in the heat. The trip to Mobile had not gone like I had planned. I didn't get to spend as much time with them as I had wanted, so I was thankful to have a few extra minutes with my mother and daddy before it was time to return home.

As I turned to exit the parking lot of the church, I heard the chimes ringing from the tall steeple. The car windows were up and the air conditioning was blowing but the chimes were loud enough for me to recognize the melody they were playing. They were playing the old hymn, Love Lifted Me.

I counted the years. It had been at least fifteen since I had heard that song.

There was no one behind me as I approached a stop sign so I sat for a moment and listened to the melody. The words flowed out of my mouth.

"Love lifted me, Love lifted me. When nothing else could help, Love lifted me."

No hymn book was needed. The words had been stored in the mind of a little, dark-haired girl many years ago. A little girl that had no idea of the magnitude, the fierceness, or the persistence of the love that she sang about.

She also had no idea of the sin she would sink into, or the stains that sin would bring.

The little girl didn't know that one day she would choose to do things her way, instead of following the One she was singing about, and that those ways would almost drown her.




The little girl had no idea that in the very worst moment of her life, that The Master of the Sea would hear her cries and come and lift her out of the black, suffocating, stormy sea.

The grown-up little girl now knows that every word to the song is true.

She knows what it's like to be lifted by God's fierce and relentless love.

She knows because she has lived it.

And for that I am forever grateful.

I was sinking deep in sin, far from the peaceful shore,

Very deeply stained within, sinking to rise no more,
But the Master of the Sea, heard my despairing cry,
From the waters lifted me now safe am I.



MY GRATITUDE LIST

168. being lifted
169. being heard in the storm
170. fierce, relentless love
171. hidden words and promises
172. little girls in church
173. little boys in church
174. old green hymn books
175. the book, Forgotten God by Francis Chan
176. answers to questions only He knows I've asked
177. winks and nods from God
178. being washed in comfort
179. Ethan making sure that I am watching him swim
180. knowing in the next storm, He'll lift me again