Skip to main content

Surely God is in This Place

A friend wrote today to tell me how our music had been a "necessary balm" during her stressful week. She described some of the events of her week, and I would have to say "stressful" is an understatement. Still, I was delighted to hear that our music had brought her some peace in the midst of it all.

But it was her final sentence that has lasted throughout my day: surely God is in this place.

I had checked my email, while my students watched a short film clip, and when I read that phrase I felt it down to the soles of my feet. I felt its impact so profoundly that I had to put it away for later. The lights were about to come up.

So tonight I went to her message again: surely God is in this place.
Surely God is in this place.

Of course I know this. I know He is an omnipresent God. I know He is sovereign. I know He has me (and He has you) in the palm of His hand. I know it.

But somehow my friend's words--coming as they did after a story of mishap and injury--helped me know it all the more.

Surely God is in this place. He is in this place.
  • He is in this school year that has brought me record numbers of students (and record numbers of hours worked).
  • He is in my class of 38 seniors and in my class of juniors (who perhaps aren't getting my best, but are surely getting some of the goodness God picked out for them).
  • He is in the CDs that haven't come even close to making money, but have brought reports of joy and peace in the midst of political storms and international tragedies. 
  • He is with my friends who are dealing with health crises. 
  • He was in our church Christmas program that was, as always, so much better than we deserve. 
  • He was in our mourning and our joy, as we celebrated Carol Lowe Waitley's life.
  • He was surely there when I so joyfully reunited with my grade school best friend after nearly 40 years.
  • He was there when I drove all the way to Timberline one Sunday night and discovered I'd forgotten my school keys. (He was there when I drove back to Meridian to get them and then made the return trip.)
  • He was surely there when a student said I'm funny like Tina Fey, and another student corrected her: "No, Tina Fey is funny like Miss Roberts." Take that, William :)
  • He was there when my brand new nephew-in-law fixed my water dispenser that hadn't worked in 18 months.
  • He is in my sleeping (Psalm 4.8), and He is in my running (Hebrews 12.1-2).
  • He is in the world that feels full of chaos and fear.
Back to my friend's story. It didn't end with mishap and injury. It ended with community. It ended with strangers who rained love and kindness and goodness onto her family.

Surely God is in this place.

Perhaps you know it . . . but you need to know it all over again.
Perhaps you see God as much in the injury as in the community.
Perhaps you think it's poppycock but it's sweet that Laurie believes it.

And perhaps, just perhaps, you need to make your own list. (I know I did.)

Surely God is in this place.





Comments

  1. So beautiful Laurie. A good reminder and another way to look at "I am the woman God is with!"

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

On This Day

It was a very busy, long morning. I had back-to-back-to-back conferences with kids and parents and my principal that filled every break. Still, classes went mostly well, and I felt like I sort of knew how to teach. Then I went to cnn.com just as lunch was starting--just 5 minutes to spare before I had to meet parents. Wow. Just wow. I struggled to keep myself together. I didn't want to be crying when I met with the parents. But children--little children--shot and killed . . . . The parents were lovely, by the way, asking great questions about their son and telling me how much he likes my class, which really surprised them, because he's a math/science guy. Turns out he thinks I'm funny. I went straight to the church after work to continue working on our Christmas program. It's a huge undertaking, and I don't know how anyone could do it alone. I left feeling grateful for many hands and heads that make light work. And then I went to the Hungry Onion

Believe in Your Seed

Twenty-five years ago, she was a student in my 10th-grade English class in Kellogg, a small mining town in Idaho’s panhandle. Now, she is an educator herself  — an elementary teacher in the same large district where I teach high school English. And today, she stood in front 3000 employees of the Boise School District and delivered a keynote address. Her speech was, to say the least, inspiring. It was expertly crafted — full of story, wit, insight, and charm. Her delivery was seamless, vivid, funny, and, quite frankly, better than any such talk I have heard in 31 years of opening meetings. (I say this as someone who is particularly passionate about public speaking. In fact, public speaking has become one of my greatest passions — both as a teacher who helps students craft presentations, and as someone who dreams of doing exactly what Sonia Galaviz did today.) As she spoke, I experienced her speech on several levels. I was the veteran teacher inspired by a somewhat younger t

Love: the Ultimate Pedagogy

I did not intend to love them; I did not particularly want to love them. I was never the bright-eyed rookie teacher out to change the world, one student at a time. I thought my job was to do the serious work of scholarship and academia. I was a professional — a high school English teacher. I was Miss Roberts, not your cookie-baking, kid-loving aunt.  But against my will and what I thought was my better judgment, I began to discover that I did love my students. At first I thought it was a surprising, pleasant side-effect of hanging out with the same people every week for nine months, but I did not consider it a valuable part of teaching. It seemed too flaky, too silly to even say out loud. The pivot point came after I changed schools, 15 years into my career. I loved my first job at Kellogg High School, my beloved hometown, but for a variety of reasons, in year 16 I made the move to the big city of Boise, 400 miles away. The transition was excruciating. I might as well have been