Healing hurts and counting stars

The early 1960s in Indonesia were years of political upheaval. The Communist party was strong and growing in power. There were protest marches in our city against Malaysia and against the British. I remember the air raid drills in Surabaya when I was 4 or 5 years old. The siren would blow and every light had to be turned off.  We sat in the dark until the siren blew again. If it happened during dinner time, Mom put a sock over a flashlight and fed my baby brother by its faint glow.

One night while we were sleeping, someone painted anti-British signs all over the front wall of our house, right outside the window of my bedroom. My dad asked Supii, who worked at our home, to clean the wall. I didn’t know at the time what all of those signs meant but I watched as they slowly disappeared behind the layers of whitewash.

Fear

I couldn’t sleep one night. I imagined someone was standing outside my window. When I called out to my dad and told him I was afraid, he took me outside onto our front porch.

It was dark and quiet. No street lamps. We looked up.  Dad pointed out God’s creation—the moon, the stars. They were bright in the night sky. He reminded me of God’s presence with us. There was no need to be afraid. I felt peaceful, no longer fearful. I went back to bed and fell sound asleep.

Psalm 147

A few years ago, during a dark time, I called out to my Father in heaven. I told him I was afraid. I wasn’t sure what the future looked like. One of our children was struggling. Everything looked very uncertain.

One morning I read Psalm 147. And I was back on that front porch, looking at the stars.

“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.

He counts the number of the stars; He gives names to all of them.

Our Lord is great, vast in power; His understanding is infinite” (Psalm 147:3-5)

The psalmist sings of our great God–casually mentioning the intensely personal and the wonderfully cosmic in the same breath. Our Lord is tenderly touching the deepest hurt of broken people. Healing and binding inner wounds.  At the same time, He is in the massive universe, counting and naming stars. All of them.

These words pointed me that day to the Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty—and I worshiped.

This God, who knows His creation from the farthest star to the deepest pain, knows me and knows you. Intimately. He sees the vast expanse of the big picture and the most intricate details of our personal lives.

In the margin beside Psalm 147:5, I wrote Proverbs 3:5—“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.”  In the midst of the unknown, this was my reminder to rely on the One who has infinite understanding. Abba Father who so loves us.

What about you?

Have you looked at the sky lately? Marveled at the expanse of the universe? Have you whispered or cried aloud your fears to Him? What’s your “front porch” experience with the Father?