Steady, Steady
Mama after mama expresses to me her worry about her oldest child entering high school. This journey into uncharted territory is scary. These mamas can look back at what has happened in the previous years of their child’s education, of course. It’s the fact that they cannot see what is ahead of them that tempts them to worry.
On the night that we left Bar Harbor, Maine, our captain announced that visibility would be very poor that night. He would have to use the ship’s bell to warn other vessels that we were in the water also. During dinner, the crew hoisted the nine-ton anchor that had kept us steady all day. Before that moment, I thought of anchors as looking like these.
Some do look like these, but now I like to imagine an anchor that weighs nine tons.
At times in our lives, we think we know what is ahead and at other times, we aren’t sure that we do. However, in actuality, each of us goes forward into uncharted territory every day. The good news is that even though our visibility is poor, God sees perfectly well and He is holding us steady with an anchor much more effective than nine tons.
In the same way God,
desiring even more to show
to the heirs of the promise
the unchangeableness of His purpose,
interposed with an oath,
so that by two unchangeable things
in which it is impossible for God to lie,
we who have taken refuge
would have strong encouragement
to take hold of the hope set before us.
This hope we have as an anchor of the soul,
a hope both sure and steadfast . . .
Hebrews 6:17-19a
One of my favorite hymns is “Will Your Anchor Hold in the Storms of Life” because it reminds me that storms will come and that He is more than sufficient to carry me through!