Yesterday I shared a seasonal piece of music that I love and which I find helps point me to God (which is the point of these 40 posts…). It was a long work, and quite intense.
Today, I heard another piece of music that is important to me. It’s much shorter and much simpler, but it comes with a story.
The song is called ‘Nothing I hold onto’. It basically has three sections, but somehow, despite its simplicity, it has a very deep meaning to me.
I lean not on my own understanding
My life is in the hands of The Maker of heaven
I give it all to You, God
Trusting that You’ll make something beautiful out of me…
And I will climb this mountain
With my hands wide open
There’s nothing I hold on to
It’s very repetitive. Each of these sections is repeated many times, and the first bit comes back at the end. Unlike yesterday’s, the melody isn’t breathtaking. Its simple. But because of that, the words stand out.
So the line ‘trusting that you’ll make something beautiful out of me’ is one of the key lines. It’s a reminder that with everything we walk through, every mistake we’ve made, every scar we carry, God can use it all if we let him. Our stories matter. We don’t need to give the good bits and hide the bad bits. The whole story, all of our life, it has a meaning and a purpose. God didn’t cause the painful bits, but he can still use them.
The other key line for me is ‘I will climb this mountain with my hands wide open’. A few years ago now, I went on an 3 day walk with a group. The first day was baking hot walking through fields. I coped with that. The second day we climbed up the side of a gorge. I needed some encouragement, but I coped with that too. But on the third day… Parts of the walk were in silence as we reflected on a key thought or question. I can’t exactly remember what the question was, but I know I had that inner voice telling me I didn’t belong. John 10: 4 talks about the sheep of the flock knowing the voice of the shepherd. I didn’t. At that point, comparing myself with others (always dangerous!) I couldn’t recognise what was God’s voice. So that little inner voice was telling me I didn’t belong. If I didn’t recognise the voice, I wasn’t part of the flock.
Then we came to a hill. A steep hill. Not quite a mountain, but after 3 days and over 30 miles I was physically exhausted. And after hours with that voice I was mentally beaten too. I was at the back and I had to stop. But four others on the walk stopped with me. One took my bag, one gave me a drink and the other two offered words of encouragement and refused to leave me behind. Didn’t belong? They clearly thought I did. And the reflections of the walk were based on St Patrick’s prayer, and the last verse is:
Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger
It was that last line that cut through the voice. Christ in mouth of friend and stranger. So yes, I climbed the ‘mountain’ with my hands wide open, with the encouragement of friends and strangers (although by that point, not quite strangers…). The view from the top was… clouds. But the feeling of belonging, of overcoming? I didn’t care about the clouds. Whenever I hear or sing that song, it reminds me again of that moment, how God used the people around me then to show me I belonged and he wasn’t going to leave me. He still does use my friends (and occasionally strangers…) to speak to me about key things. Who knows, maybe he’s used you! But remembering that, it also gives me courage to trust God to turn everything into something beautiful. Even if I can’t see it at that point.
The Reason for my Hope Blog 