Looking Back

"Do not fear, for I am with you; do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, surely I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." - Isaiah 41:10

I've never been a fan of spending too much time looking backward. After all, life is forward motion, but every once in a while, I travel those roads back to see with fresh eyes the beginnings of God's story of my life.

This week my oldest, my firstborn, had a birthday. Sometimes I get a little nostalgic and pull out the old photo albums that chronicle moments captured long before the digital age of smart phones. I dug around in the side cabinet next to my bed, pulled out the little, white book, and began slowly turning the pages.

Oh, my, how it took me back in a flash! The look of joy and pride on Tom's face... the exhaustion in mine moments after delivery. The sweet smiles of loved ones long gone making over this precious new baby. It's funny how time ceases to exist when you travel back like this. Moments stretch to a standstill.

I was struck in particular by one photo of me holding Mark in my arms, dressed and ready to leave the hospital, heading home to a place now meant for three.

That picture overflows with abundance. I see that now. I can ONLY see it now looking back.

Me, young, spindly, weighing less after his birth than I did before I got pregnant, a smile so deep with gratitude for this gift, so full of unimaginable love... and yet so tentative in my surety that I would be able to be everything he would need.

I see it looking back.

God saw it... looking forward.

He had the surety I lacked. He WAS the everything we both would need.

He was the architect. He drew the plans.

I... ?

I was in the dark, but I had a great big hand to hold, a hand that guided where we were going and how we would get there.

Looking back, how truly thankful I am that I was in the dark about those plans. His plans would take us down roads I surely would not have chosen. They would involve time-outs, long waits, standstills I would have liked to forego. He spared me the weighty anxiety of knowing too much too soon.

God knew what He was doing, even if I hadn't a clue.

I look at that picture today and I ask myself, "Would I really have wanted to know in that moment all that lay ahead of us?" The struggles? The sleepless nights? The doctors? The worries? The tears? Or would I have wanted exactly what He gave me... grace, strength, and help for the day, each day as it came?

Two individuals in that photo, each vulnerable in his own way, and God saw. He knew. He knew our vulnerabilities were no match for His supreme capability. God was there for us both, lifting us, carrying us. He still is.

That photo reminds me just how wonderfully God has cared for me throughout my life, through so many hard places, so many uncertain times. He has been the solid ground... always. What comfort there is in knowing the One who created and ordered all that is and ever will be, created me and ordered my days as well!

Life is forward motion, yes. But sometimes it's good to look back and truly see...

see the evidence of the invisible, almighty hand that was there all along.