We Are Not Alone - Pastor Jen

Happy Thursday! It is Thursday, right? Today’s connection blog has a little something for everyone… poetry, scripture and a song. 
This post was inspired by all that is going on around me and feeling, at times, that I am the only one with these thoughts and emotions. I texted a friend yesterday and her response was, “I love your text! I felt the exact same way!!!! (insert two hearts here.)”
Church family, you’re not alone. Others are experiencing something similar. And thankfully the words of the Psalmist are just as applicable today as they were long ago. “If I ascend to heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there Your hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me fast.”

 
I am not alone     You are not alone     We are not alone
 
I drive to work and I come to the stop sign
I look left, right and left again
there is not a car in sight
            I think I am alone
 
Sitting with my emotions, my wide-ranging and wide-raging emotions…
There is joy knowing those I love are well
There is grief as a watch a friend mourn her mother with 6 other people
            I think I am alone
 
As the sun and I rise the crisp morning air alerts me to a new day
It is Monday I think, I pause, Is it Monday?…
I haven’t opened my planner in weeks as one day runs into the next
            I think I am alone
 
Sitting with questions of, What is next?
What will life look like when…? How will we resume our activities?
What will be the new normal?
I can only think of now
            I think I am alone
 
But I KNOW I am not alone…
I am not alone in how I feel
I am not alone as I sit with my questions and worries
my uncertainties, my grief, and yes, my joys
I am not alone in my inabilities to sit still
or move from the same damn chair I’ve been in for hours
I am not alone when I throw myself into a book only to look up after the last page.
And I am not alone when I can’t read more than 5 words without thinking… SQUIREL!   
 
I am not alone when all I want to do is laugh, laugh, laugh…
only to find myself in tears.
 
We are not alone!
You are not alone!
I am not alone!
 
 
“O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.                                                                                Where can I go from your spirit?
Or where can I flee from your presence? f I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast. If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night’, even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you.” Psalm 139:1-3,7-12
 
“Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:35,38,39
 
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My friend Jennifer Sanborn shared this video of "We Are Not Alone" sung by Virtual Hartford Seminary choir. This short piece is a profound reminder that we are not alone, “God will make us strong, God is with us. We will press on for God is with us.” Jennifer, who is in the upper left corner, works with ABHMS and sang at our church about 5 years ago when she and her family came down to visit me and Sandy. May you be blessed by this simple song.