Thankful Thursday: Those who hold up my hands

It isn’t an exaggeration to say that this has been one of the hardest weeks of my life. I don’t know that I’ve ever cried so much, for such a sustained amount of time, for no apparent reason.

This depression that has lingered for so long, which came to its breaking point this week, threatens to topple me.

I think of the song

“So I’ll stand
With arms high and heart abandoned
In awe
If the One who gave it all
I’ll stand
My soul, Lord, to You abandoned
All I am is Yours”

My voice breaks with a sob. I cannot stand. It is too much for me.

Instead I sit, like Moses on a rock, while others hold my hands high-helping me to see and to savor the gospel.

This week I’m thankful…

…for Daniel
He has held more than just my arms this week. He held me up quite literally, when I was having persistent dizzy spells on Sunday. He has held me physically and emotionally, as I bawled before and after work each day. He has held me up in prayer, consistently lifting me up to the Father. And he has held Christ’s love before my eyes when I haven’t the strength to lift even my eyes to the Lord.

…for Megan
When I said that it had been a tough day on Tuesday and she commiserated and chatted with me. When she welcomed us into her home for Bible study, with a far better birthday treat for Daniel than I had the power to muster. When she sat beside me and put her arm around me, praying for me.

…for Bev
She listened to my tale of woe. She told me I was okay. She asked me about my time in the Word. She pestered me about seeing a doctor. She praised my resolution to get ten minutes of physical activity each day. She challenged me to look to Christ. She held up my hands and told me that this darkness is not forever, and that God has a purpose when I see no purpose.

…for Ruth
She texted me last night to invite me to a Bible study this evening. I told her she should pick me up so I couldn’t talk myself out of going. When I realized this afternoon that I wouldn’t be able to make it through the night, and messaged her to cry off, she probed deeper. She asked how she could help. She gave me a chance to change my mind. She showed up on my doorstep to make sure I was okay, to give me a hug, to remind me that she was here for me.

…for Shirley
I’m sure Shirley has no idea that she was an agent of grace tonight when I went out for my ten minute walk and she asked me if my husband still had his job. She reminded me of the things I have to be grateful for–that my husband still has his job after the recent rounds of layoffs at his plant, that I have a neighbor who is concerned about us. She reminded me to lift my petitions with thanksgiving, even when the petitions weigh so heavily.

These have, probably unknowingly, been pillars beneath my hands, holding them up to the Lord–effecting victory (however small it seems so far) in the woman below.

“But Moses’ hands grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side. So his hands were steady until the going down of the sun.”
~Exodus 17:12 (ESV)

But most of all, I am thankful to my God, who sustains me.

“I give thanks to my God always … because of the grace of God that was given [me] in Christ Jesus, that in every way [I have been] enriched in Him in all speech and all knowledge…so that [I am] not lacking in any gift, as [I] wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain [me] to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom [I was] called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”
~1 Corinthians 1:4-9 (ESV)