an ever-present help and stay, our peace and joy and
blessing;
as with a mother’s tender hand he leads his own, his
chosen band:
to God all praise and glory.
---Johann Jakob Schutz, 1675
The hardest place in the world to be. Is it stuck in a rip
current? At the beginning of a final exam for which you have neglected to
properly prepare? Sitting in the doctor’s office, where no one will meet your
eye? At home watching the clock, waiting for a child out long past curfew,
again?
In my experience, the hands-down hardest place in this world
to be is alone. Almost anything I can
think of can be faced down successfully with an ally beside you. And almost
anything can seem insurmountable when you feel that you are facing it by
yourself. Jesus himself seemed to understand the human craving for “with-ness”, for his promise recorded in John 14:18 is this: I
will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.
In this text, hymnist Johann Schutz imagined God as
ever-present and tenderly guiding as the mother of a toddler, continually
offering a hand to steady, to guide, to reassure; never more than an instant
away, so that the stresses and dangers of life, its hurts and heartaches, need
not be faced alone, but in the loving presence of One who bore us and loves us
fiercely. And tenderly. Like mothers do.
And won’t let us go it alone.
