Dwelling Place

I am currently living in Fishers, Indiana while I complete my student teaching. Which, by  the way, is taking place virtually  due to the global pandemic. Which, by the way, is lasting way, WAY longer than I ever would have wanted or expected. I'm so stinking bummed. Constantly  fighting discontentment, longing for a classroom filled with students, questioning how the Lord's goodness could be at hand when  social distancing drives wedges in learning and the mental health of students takes hit after hit and everyone's going crosseyed from hours of staring at a screen.

It feels like the storm is dragging with no end in sight.

One day last week, I came home after eight hours of Zoom school and went for a run. Desperate to move my stiff and aching joints, I decided to try out a new path that wove through the suburban neighborhoods of Fishers. 

I had no map, no GPS, no phone, no idea of where I was headed. I figured the neighborhood was probably just one big loop and I'd eventually find my way  home.
Wrong, wrong, and wrong. What was supposed to be a 2-mile leg-loosener turned into six miles of tracing sidewalks lined by houses that all look the same. I was miserably lost and felt like I would never make it back home.

Then, I felt a raindrop. One raindrop became thirty and thirty became gallons, accompanied by crashes of thunder and strikes of lightning all around me. Small rivers formed on the sides of the streets and I was soaked by every passing car. This poem came out of it. As I prayed for the storm to still or to find the right road, I started thinking about the storm of COVID. How long and frustrating it has become, more drowning and discouraging and seemingly unending than I planned for, but how God in his goodness is using it to drive me to him.

Lord I've been running through this rain
for what feels like forever
and I'm still feeling the pain
that I thought would now be better

With every step, the rain falls harder
thunder crashes more
and I'm convinced I'm running farther
from the safety of your shore.

There's nothing I can do to save myself - 
can't escape, can't hide, can't fight
but Lord I call to you for help:
"Deliver me tonight!"

I finally make it back to the house
but the pounding rain keeps coming
and I find the rest your grace allows;
Because of you, I'm no longer running

"Relent!" I cry aloud to you,
"It's been storming for so many days!"
But what if these storms are what you use
to keep me sheltered in your dwelling place?

When days are filled with nothing but sun,
I keep running on my own
it's not until my life comes undone
that I'm forced out of the storm and back home.

He who dwells in the shelter of the most High
finds rest in the shadow of your grace
The fortress I find to be safe and stay dry - 
Thank you God for your sweet dwelling place.

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