Worship Song Sunday -- You Are My Hiding Place, by Selah

You are my hiding place and my shield; I hope in your word ~ Psalm 119:14 (ESV)

Troubled times, raging storms, harsh difficulties, fiery trials, dark valleys, twisting roads, steep mountains.  We all experience them at one time or another in life.  For some of us, it feels like we're bombarded daily by all of the above.  We feel distracted, drained, discouraged, depressed.  I know those feelings all too well. 

And I often find that they hinder my desire to worship God. I become too wrapped up in my problems, in either trying to fix them all myself (Supergirl complex) or in allowing them to knock me down, capture me in their undertow and drown me. I know there are many out there who can relate to this today.

In times like these, we want to run and hide. The Scripture verse that inspired the name of my blog says: "in You my soul takes refuge; in the shadow of Your wings I will take refuge, till the storms of destruction pass by."  And that's what we long to do -- to find a hiding place to settle into until our own personal storms of destruction pass us by.

Our hiding places can be anywhere -- a room in our home (mine is in the corner of a small room in our basement); our car; the bathroom (hey, for some of us, that's worked); a park; a pier by the lake; the quiet study room at the library.  When I was a young girl, and my parents' fighting would escalate, I'd run out of the house and down the street to our church to hide in the pews, where I found peace and solace.

But there is a much, much better hiding place than any of these.


In Psalm 32, David tells the LORD God that He is David's hiding place; that he knows He will be protected from trouble and surrounded with songs of deliverance.

This morning, I invite you to join me in putting aside all those things that are causing us to take our eyes off the Master and sink into the raging, stormy seas, interfering with our worship of Him. 

I invite you to join me and come to the Lord, and to step into His hiding place -- beneath the shadow of His wings -- and allow the words and the music of this song to help us to find peace, rest, security and solace in God.  Each time I've listened to this song, it has brought me an overwhelming feeling of peace, of rest, of comfort, a strengthening and a great nearness of God, allowing me to let go of everything and sing along in worship of Him.

Today, whatever you're going through, entangled in or running from, let Him be your hiding place, beneath His wings, as you worship Him.

May this be our song of deliverance today.

When There Are No Words

"The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims His handiwork." ~Psalm 19:1

There are days when words just won’t come.

I don’t know what it is -- call it writer’s block or the less creative and much cruder term of a ‘brain fart.’

Or sometimes, there just aren’t the proper words to describe what I see, what I’m feeling and experiencing, what’s on my mind and heart.

It’s like that right now for me.  I currently have no humorous stories to share here.  No challenges to issue. No sage advice or wisdom-filled lessons to dispense here on my blog.  It feels a little odd to me, kind of weird.

So because I’m still ‘newly retired’ ( a mere 5 months), rather than trying to work through this dry spell by spending entire days attending to things like vacuuming, laundry, cleaning out the ‘fridge, purging and rearranging cabinets, closets, kitchen junk drawers and alphabetizing my book shelves, I’ve taken to going out driving and/or walking to places of beauty, quietness and serenity in my area (and with the cold, winter months looming on the horizon, soon I may not want or be able to go anywhere). 

But I can do it now.

I have the time and the availability; I have the good health and the ability.

And -- I’ve got a darn fine Canon PowerShot A590 camera to visually capture, the best that I can, the beauty and the loveliness of the Lord God’s creation in these places I often find on my drives and my walks.

Some of these spots are well known to me and to people from this area. Others are not. Some are places I’ve just ‘happened’ upon, places to which the Lord God has guided me. Places I had no idea even existed so close to me. They have become my 'hiding places', if you will.

I find comfort there
I find peace there
I find contentment there
I find joy there
I find the beauty and holiness and the nearness of my Lord God there

And so I’ve taken to carrying my little camera with me everywhere I go. Because I’ve found that, more often than not, when I’m not looking and I least expect it is when my Abba allows me to stumble upon some breathtaking, indescribably glorious or sweetly simplistic Kodak -- um, Canon -- moment in the sky or along the landscape:

A brilliant, Technicolor (almost double) rainbow

A show-stopping sunset or sunrise

Thick, swirling fog resting gently upon a lake or a pond in the early morning light

An astounding, eye-catching cloud formation

The surprise of colorful flowers in a drab spot

A sudden burst of autumnal brilliance in a grove of trees

Various winged, two and four-legged creatures and beings at work or at play or at rest

　
When I have no thoughts to share or I'm at a loss to verbally describe what I see--

There are pictures…..

Snapshots of life, visuals to share and to convey

The Awesomeness

The Beauty

The Holiness

The Sacredness

The Love

And the Glory of our amazing Father and Creator God!

From the highest of heights to the depths of the sea
Creation's revealing Your majesty
From the colors of fall to the fragrance of spring
Every creature unique in the song that it sings
All exclaiming

Indescribable, uncontainable,
You placed the stars in the sky and You know them by name.
You are amazing God
All powerful, untameable,
Awestruck we fall to our knees as we humbly proclaim
You are amazing God  ~ Indescribable, by Chris Tomlin (lyrics by Laura Story)