She was special. All my students were, but she was especially special.

I listened again this past week, via text, to the valleys that seem to stretch too long in her still-young life. I felt the too-familiar cringe curling my insides with the empty question, “Why?”

This child – God’s beloved child – walks every day a lone candle into a dark place. She has seen more messes in this life than I can count, but she is a candle all the same and her light shines on and dispells darkness.

And I remembered.
I wrote,
“Where will you find the floor tomorrow morning?”
She said, “right under my feet, beside my bed… everywhere I place my foot.”

I smiled.

It had come out in the middle of one of our ‘pep talks,’ sitting on furniture that had been rejected from all other offices. I don’t remember the subject exactly, but I remember how it ended. I was asking this very special girl if there was anything to know for certain when the world swirled like crazy around her. I was asking her if she could be sure of anything at all inside the broken mess of her days.

And that’s when I asked,
“When you get out of bed tomorrow morning, where will your feet land?”
“…on the floor?”
“And have you ever gotten out of bed in the morning to find the floor is gone?”
“… Um, no.”
“God is like that. You are His child and He is forever. He will not change with the amount of mess or blessing in your life. He will always, always be what your faith and hope stand on – and He will not move.”

Our whole house can crumble around us, but there is always this ground – this terra firma where we walk out our existence. There is always this ground, a solid foundation for each shaky step.

God is this foundation when the sunlight breaks through the window in the morning to shine on what was dark during the night.
God is this foundation when the shadows scurry under beds and behind doors.
God is this foundation when friendships dissolve and sadness overwhelms.

God is this foundation when we swing our feet out of bed every morning.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy
in the refuge of the King