I have plenty of memories from that time.

But sometimes 

they all blend together 

and it’s hard to sort out which things happened when.

But, sometimes, 

I remember a song from back then 

and, suddenly, I can see one of those moments in my life.

Songs hold nearly all of my memories and without these melodic time capsules, I’m not sure how much I would remember at all.

Tonight, the song is ‘Blessings’ by Laura Story. Up until that point in my life, I’d hated Christian radio so much, but at the point in my life when I found this song, 

I was so desperate 

- so thirsty - 

for truth…

for something of God to hold onto to keep me afloat...

…this song felt like drops of water to drink in a drought. 

It felt like God’s tears for my suffering raining on my desert.

What if Your blessings come through raindrops?

I remember a cloudy day in Asheville - the whole city waiting for the rain to finally break. We were all in Mom’s car, driving from some resale shop to Dick’s Sporting Goods. 

We were looking for something...I don’t remember.

I was sitting up front in the passenger seat - looking across the parking lot at the trees and the mountains — 

From that spot I don’t think I could’ve seen mountains…

Why do I remember mountains?

I remember my beat-up, blue Bible - the cracks in the cover pressing into my fingers…

…did I bring my Bible shopping that day?

I remember being so tired…

tired like the sky…

carrying those dark heavy clouds that wouldn’t go and couldn’t rain. 

Tired like sloping mountains - standing for centuries -  

…that maybe were there and maybe were not.

What if Your healing comes through tears?

Yes. I probably did bring my big study Bible to the Asheville Dick’s Sporting Goods that day; because 

just like the words of that song were 

wood scraps strewn across the ocean surface — keeping me afloat, 

that Bible was the blanket I weakly lifted over my head to keep safe from...everything. 

That crinkled up, stained Bible was the only thing that brought me any rest. 

And so I brought it with me and I rested my mind on it…

sometimes I rested my head on it.

Waiting for rain,

waiting for rest,

waiting for Momma to come back to the car.

We would go home and then I’d be safe.

But I wouldn’t be safe.

 Because every night, my bed would be the mattress on the floor…

I would stay awake for hours - lights on - dodging anxiety attacks…

getting hit.

I remember that night too - blow up mattress and Christmas lights. 

Momma in my room and a rock in my stomach.

“She recommended you try medication. What if this helps you?”

“Isn’t God supposed to fix me? What if I’m not trusting Him to heal me? Will medication mean I don’t have faith?”

“God can use whatever He wants to heal us, Lucy...He can use medicine just as much as miracles. Maybe He is giving you this medicine?”

What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You’re near?

I’d suffered for long enough - while simultaneously clutching my Bible -

 to know He was trying to teach me something - 

trying to grow me somehow…

somehow.

He doesn’t waste our pain.

He doesn’t waste our pain.

He will not waste this pain.

I’d suffered long enough - while clutching that Bible - to know that 

beyond my suffering and beyond my reason, 

He had to be good.

What if my greatest disappointments and the aching of this life is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy?

I don’t remember if it finally rained in Asheville that night - 

if the tired sky or sloping mountains heard the sound of rest pattering in the night. 

I have no memory of the sound on my window after Momma left my room.

But I remember the drops of water on my pillow and on my Bible.

I remember imagining a clear night sky 

that looked down on a starlit field 

where Hope and Peace 

floated across the grassy ground.

And I remember that song.

What if trials of this life -

The rains, the storms,

The hardest nights -

Are Your mercies in disguise?