REASSURED !

Sometimes life is scary.

When least expected pain, disease - trauma or drama - or other less significant disturbances to routine rituals (with and without warning) mushroom clouds over all rainbows and blot light to choking darkness.

I have such times. 

I have heard those feelings described as being on the bottom of the pond. I joke that I feel like I am under the scum on the bottom of the pond – sometimes it helps to smile, laugh a little and by acting the part become it.

Sometimes the fear is palpable, literal reality.

THEN, often, I will find a hymn sliding softly into thought and seeping words of comfort and wisdom through consciousness.

Music such as Hymn # 85 How Firm A Foundation.

Tonight verse 3 began and the song continued and inserted a cracked slivered ray into inky despair. 

  3. Fear not, I am with thee; oh, be not dismayed,

      For I am thy God and will still give thee aid.
      I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand, …
      Upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand.

  4. When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
      The rivers of sorrow shall not thee o’erflow,
      For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless, …
      And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.

I found a hymn book and slowly, read hymn 85 – all of it. Then I had my husband read verse 4 through 7 to me – slowly. I knew God was speaking to me personally – specifically.

Praise to the Great King of Heaven, to God - the loving Father of each one of us.

Truly He knows each of us and notices our every thought. I am left wondering if I bother to even acknowledge His existence sometimes. He loves each of us just as we are with all our fear and faithless foibles. 

I am loved,and watched over even when I neglect to recognize it .

You are loved. ALWAYS!!!!!!!

31243, Hymns, How Firm a Foundation, no. 85

  1. How firm a foundation, ye Saints of the Lord,
      Is laid for your faith in his excellent word!
      What more can he say than to you he hath said,
      Who unto the Savior, who unto the Savior,
      Who unto the Savior for refuge have fled?

  2. In ev’ry condition—in sickness, in health,

      In poverty’s vale or abounding in wealth,
      At home or abroad, on the land or the sea—
      As thy days may demand, as thy days may demand,
      As thy days may demand, so thy succor shall be.

 3. Fear not, I am with thee; oh, be not dismayed,
      For I am thy God and will still give thee aid.
      I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,
      Upheld by my righteous, upheld by my righteous,
      Upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand.

 4. When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
      The rivers of sorrow shall not thee o’erflow,
      For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,
      And sanctify to thee, and sanctify to thee,
      And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.

 5. When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
      My grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply.
      The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
      Thy dross to consume, thy dross to consume,
      Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.

 6. E’en down to old age, all my people shall prove
      My sov’reign, eternal, unchangeable love;
      And then, when gray hair shall their temples adorn,
      Like lambs shall they still, like lambs shall they still,
      Like lambs shall they still in my bosom be borne.

 7. The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose
      I will not, I cannot, desert to his foes;
     That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
     I’ll never, no never, I’ll never, no never,
     I’ll never, no never, no never forsake!

        Text: Attr. to Robert Keen, ca. 1787.

         Included in the first LDS hymnbook, 1835.
        Music: Attr. to J. Ellis, ca. 1889
        Isaiah 41:10; Isaiah 43:2–5 Helaman 5:12