Presence

One hand, one gentle hand remains on me at all times. Have you ever walked through a crowd and had your hands on your child's shoulders, gently steering them, a from behind guide maintaining contact and ensuring that while moving, you stay together? Often in a crowd, there is jostling and an arm can get knocked, a hand inadvertently slipping away from a shoulder with a slight panicy feeling when contact is broken and then a quick restore of two hands or perhaps, one hand becomes enough, with the touch alternating between firm and light, depending on the crowd patterns, necessity dictating touch intensity. When my child was perhaps four, my husband and I had taken him to an outdoor fun festival. The boy had gone into a tent and while I saw him go in, there was some confusion upon his exit and I vividly recall his face, dissolving into panicked tears when he couldn't see me at the exit and there were strange people milling about and none of them looked familiar to him. He has always been excellent at naming what he feels and he said something along the lines of "you weren't waiting for me". I shake my head at the memory because it still makes me sad for him to have been so frightened and to feel so abandoned. Isn't that how we feel sometimes, abandoned and alone, forgot or perhaps misplaced? In Deuteronomy 31:8 it says: It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; He will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed. His is the hand on my shoulder, on my heart, ever present, reminding me that I have Him as guide and that I need not fear or be dismayed. May you feel His hand on you today and may your loneliness dissolve in His presence.