Psalm 121
A song of ascents.
1 I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
where does my help come from?
2 My help comes from the Lord,
the Maker of heaven and earth.3 He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;
4 indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.5 The Lord watches over you—
the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
6 the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.
7 The Lord will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;
8 the Lord will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.
I am not afraid of many things.
I’m very scared of ghosts. To be more precise, well-written or performed ghost stories scare the heebie jeebies out of me. I’ve learned to avoid them because my over active imagination runs with what I’ve seen or read. I manage to freak myself out to the point where I usually can’t sleep and it can take days or in one case, weeks, before I can forget about it enough to not be afraid of the dark..
A friend recommended a new podcast to me. She loves it, so I thought I would give it a whirl.
I tried listening to it on Friday night as I drove home from work. It scared me so much I had to turn it off. That night I sent a text to my eldest child asking them to come over because I was so scared. (They couldn’t). So then I pushed myself til I was beyond exhausted just so I could sleep. And that still didn’t work, so I pulled up the website of the church we used to go to and listened to the audio of a sermon which finally put me sleep.
You don’t want to know how long I lay in bed when I woke up in the middle of the night needing to use the bathroom (hint: it was a really long time). I finally gathered up the nerves to run in, do my business, wash my hands, dry them, and dive back into bed, heart pounding.
I KNEW that I was being beyond silly. I KNEW that nothing was going to grab my ankle as I got in and out of bed. I KNEW that I would be ok.
But I still managed to scare myself to the point that I was like a child. Driven beyond the point of rational thought. All over 5 minutes of a scary ghost story that I didn’t even finish.
As I laid there in my bed, I prayed to God, asking Him to calm my nerves and help me find peace. Help give me the understanding that nothing would happen and that I would be ok.
It didn’t work.
In retrospect, I’m amazed at how frightened I was about that story. Most importantly, I’m disappointed in myself because I didn’t believe that God would keep me safe.
I’ve spent the past two days thinking about that. My lack of trust in God – even for something as trivial as my being scared of a ghost – highlights how hard it still is for me to let go of my pride and lean fully on Him for support.
Then I read Psalm 121 and accepted the lesson and message it contained.
God watches over me all the time. God keeps me safe all the time.
The fact is that nothing happened to me the other night. No scary ghost came out of my closet, or grabbed my ankle as I got in and out of bed. I was safe as I slept that night.
That’s my comfort. Even if there is no sign (how often do we want SIGNS FROM GOD??) I’m safe. God is always with me .Even when I’m scared of the dark.
I also know that even if a ghost had appeared that God would be right beside me. He is my shelter and my comfort. I don’t have to be afraid because I have Him.
Thank you, God, for the lesson – that I need to work on trusting You completely, even in situations that can seem silly. You are always there for me. You are always watching over me. Thank you for reminding me of that. Amen