So I'm into Day 2 working on a particularly difficult story to post here. I'm still debating how much to post. I'm also wondering how much of what I'm writing about is just for me to process this difficult part of my life.
So, as I continue to wrestle with it, let me show you were it's going, a conclusion of sorts....
*****
"You Are Here" by Dave George and Grant Pankratz
There is a love that I know
A strength for the weak and the broken heart
My Shepherd and King
I find You within me
For you are here
My Lord forever
You are here
You carried the cross for the world
Gathered the lost and the fatherless
My Shepherd and King
I find You within me
For You are here
My Lord forever
You are here
In this place, you are here
By Your mercy, I draw near
In my heart, take your place
You are here
Your word is the light of the earth
Your glory resounds in the universe
My Shepherd and King
I find You within me
For You are here
My Lord forever
You are here
The same power that conquered the grave
Lives in me, Lives in me
Your love that rescued the earth
Lives in me, lives in me
The bridge of this song has been used in various worship song arrangements and it was the bridge that impacted me in Fall 2008.
On September 12, 2008, a Metrolink train in Los Angeles collided with a freight train. Maybe you remember hearing about it. [L.A. Times coverage here] I remember where I was that night. I was sitting at an IHOP in Hollywood eating dinner with my friend Lara before we went to the El Rey Theatre to hear Brooke Fraser play.
I found out the next morning that a friend of mine from church, Racheal, was not only on that train but in the first car that was most damaged. [A story on her is here] She spent two months in ICU in a coma and when she woke up there was a long road to recovery ahead of her.
One of those days early on after the crash, I remember praying for Racheal when this song (or at least the abbreviated bridge version) came on: The same power that conquered the grave lives in me. Your love that rescued the earth lives in me. I was overwhelmed by the power of those statements. And then I was even more overwhelmed by the actual truth of those statements. It was a time when I didn't really know how to pray and I found myself just repeating these lines over and over, believing that the same power that conquered the grave, that overcame death, that gave life where there was no life, lived not only in me, but in Racheal, someone who really needed God's healing, who we really wanted to see come back from the edge of death.
Which brings me to today. We sang this song at church tonight and I was reminded of Racheal and what I felt when I first heard this song. I thought about my own current wrestling with my dad's recovery from his stroke last year. I thought about my friend Amber who is sitting by her dad's bedside as he reaches the end. I thought about my friends Lindsey & Jeremy, Amanda and Kathy who are sitting in the critical care unit with their father and husband. All of us are at different stages in the battle or recovery but the statement remains true: The same power that conquered the grave lives in me, and in my dad, in Racheal, in Mr. Jim and the Crawfords, in Amber and her family.
And for all the sadness or dismay, for any pity party we might want to throw ourselves, we need to remember and rejoice that the same power that conquered death, disease, fear, loneliness, anxiety, etc., lives inside of us. That very same power of God that brought instant life to the body that was really dead actually and truly lives inside us. It heals and it brings life. It is a power that I cannot begin to comprehend; it is a power that I'm pretty sure I could never harness. And yet, it lives in me; it operates in me; it's available to me. And it's available to my dad and my friends' dads for healing in all the various forms in which it comes.
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