Who Holds the One Who Holds Everyone?

If you’ve been around this summer, you know Faithful Friday took a little break and Postcards from the Mess filled in instead. I’d love to tell you that was a thoughtful creative decision, but really it was a very tired mom looking down the barrel of three months with no schedule, no bedtimes, and none of the sports rhythms that keep us all sane. Short and sweet was about all I had in me.

Now we’re heading back into some kind of rhythm around here, and before I settle in, I want to hear from you. Not which version was better written, but which one you actually read all the way through. There’s a real difference between those two things, and I’d rather know than guess.

Whichever one wins is what you’re getting from me this fall, so this is your chance to have a say in it.

Okay, that’s the business portion. On to the good stuff!

I hope your week held more mercies than messes, but if not, grab that cup of coffee (or glass of wine if it’s evening) and settle in for our weekly chat.

Last Sunday, at church, a second grader said something that I haven’t been able to shake. Something that had my 38-year-old heart longing for something I’m not sure I’ve let myself want in a long time.

As she stood on stage, getting ready to be baptized, her youth leader was telling the congregation her story. The leader said, “When I asked Lily how she felt since accepting Jesus into her heart, Lily told me that she felt completely safe.”

And something in me just broke open.

It made me think about what it means to feel safe with God, and the fact that I’m not sure I have let myself feel it in a while.

I’ve spent many years being the safe place for everyone in my house, and I’m realizing I haven’t let anyone be that safe place for me.

As moms, I think most of us know this one.

We want to make everyone’s world safe, calm, at peace, but what happens when our own world doesn’t feel that way? And where do we actually find the safety we’re looking for?

Those are the questions I’m wrestling with today. So let’s start there.

“The Lord is good, a safe place in times of trouble. And He knows those who come to Him to be safe.”
Nahum 1:7

As I struggled through this idea of safety, I did two things. First, I looked up the actual definition of “safe.” Merriam-Webster says it means free from harm or risk, secure from threat of danger, harm, or loss.

And I realized that as desperately as I want to be that safe place for my people, I will ultimately fall short every time. I can be the sounding board. I can be the hug at the end of a long day. I can turn on the alarm at night and lock the doors.

But their true safety lies in the hands of God.

And so does mine.

Then I reached into my desk and pulled out a tattered book full of sticky tabs and worn pages. It’s called The Bible Promise Book: One Thousand Promises from God’s Word (it’s only 2$), and it was recommended to me a few years ago during a study on prayer. I reach for it constantly when I need the reminder that God has made promise after promise to us, and that He keeps them. It pulls from the New Life Version, which uses a tightened vocabulary for those of us who need things broken down a little (me🙋🏻‍♀️ ).

Flipping through it, I was struck by how many times we are reminded that God cares about our safety. That He is our safe place. That He shields us, that He holds us, that He wants what is best for us, that our future is secure.

But Nahum 1:7 kept pulling me back. I’d flip forward and end up right there again. Here’s why I think that is: in the second line, it says “He knows those who come to Him to be safe.”

We are not random people He’s offering shelter to. We are His children, His beloved, and He knows us intimately.

This line uses a very specific word: come.

God offers us this safe place any time we need it. But we have to be active in seeking it. We have to come.

That’s the part I seem to have forgotten. I get so caught up in not feeling safe in whatever circumstance I’m in that I forget I already have the safest place there is, and the door is never closed to me.

If there is one thing I have always known about myself, it’s that I can’t help but hold everyone’s problems. Maybe that’s why I wanted to get my degree in counseling after college.

If Jones is struggling with friendships, I feel it deeply. If something hard is happening at work for Rob, I carry it. If nightmares creep into Steele’s mind, I’m most likely up for the rest of the night too.

I desperately want to be the safest place in all of their worlds. And I know I come by this honestly from my own mom.

But here’s what I didn’t notice happening. Somewhere in all that holding, I quit expecting anyone to hold me. It wasn’t a decision I made on purpose. It just became the arrangement, and I stopped questioning it a long time ago.

Then a seven-year-old stood up in front of our whole church and said she felt completely safe, and I realized I couldn’t remember the last time I let myself feel that way. Not because it wasn’t offered to me, but because I quit going to get it.

Here’s what I keep coming back to: the safe place has been sitting there this whole time, unlocked and waiting, and the only thing that has changed is that I stopped walking toward it.

My children truly do run to me with anything and everything. I am the first name they yell when they skin their knees. I am the arms they seek in the middle of the night. I am the one who holds their secrets and fears.

To say I don’t love and cherish this role in their lives would be dishonest. I love that they need me.

But I have started to realize that if I always solve the problem, hold the secret, or silence the fears, they will grow up missing the chance to bring these things to God, to see His faithfulness and safety in real time.

I have no plans to stop showing up when they are hurt or scared or worried. I will always be there in any capacity they need. But I also have the opportunity to point past myself to the only One who can truly hold it all.

So when they crawl into my lap with a scraped elbow or bring up something that’s bothering them at bedtime, I want to remind them that while I am right here in front of them to help, God will always listen and be their safe place. He knows them, every worry, every fear, every hurt, and He invites them to come and rest with Him.

I hope they will always come to me. I will gladly answer phone calls in the middle of the night to tackle whatever they need, just like my own parents have.

But I hope that in those moments, I can also lead them to the safest place there is: the arms of God.

PALM OF YOUR HAND by Brandon Lake

So be still, my soul
My God, I know
I'm in the palm of Your hand
You won't let go
My God, I know
I'm in the palm of Your hand
I am safe here

This song comes from Isaiah 49:16, in which it states, “Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands…”

It is a loving reminder that he doesn’t just hold us lightly. We are permanently inscribed right in the palm of His hands. We are always in his loving care and we are safe there.

God,

We know You made our hearts as moms to absorb so much: the fears, the worries, the pain of our people.

But You don’t ask us to do this alone.

Remind us that while we hold others, You hold us, right in the palm of Your hand.

You invite us to come to You, our true place of safety.

Give us the willingness to take that step.

Amen.

Until next week, friends,

Blair