If I take the wings of the morning...(Psalm 139:9)

Psalm 139 is the Psalm that got me through my senior year of high school. It is the Psalm that ushered me into the women's Bible studies at Bellefield. It is almost singlehandedly the Psalm that I can trace my beginning longings for a relationship with God.

I have no idea when I discovered the verses that follow:

If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there thy hand shall lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. (Psalm 139:9-10, KJV)

It was sometime my senior year. I was seventeen. I was skipping class, I was in a twisted relationship (my first boyfriend) with a guy who I later learned was "seeing" five women including me. I was your rebellious teenager. I felt like it was my last hurrah--my last year under the yoke of my parents. I thought my parents were old fashioned and irrelevant. My dad was studying Polish, translating newspapers in the evenings, and so, I the economist's daughter, got a D in Economics. My mom was constantly telling me how important it was to marry a Christian, so I was illicitly talking into the wee hours of the night with a guy who said he believed in God. I imagined that in twenty years, he'd be marriage material. Mr. Morning, where are you today?

Every time I visited a friend's house and they had a Bible, I'd flip to Psalm 139:9-10. Those two verses had enough poetry to carry me through the pain and confusion, through the lies and the deception. I loved reading the verses in different translations. I now own a Jerusalem Bible, at least one King James Version, Dios Habla Hoy (Spanish), at least two NIV translations, and the falling apart red letter Bible that I got when I was confirmed in seventh grade at Northwood Presbyterian Church. It is a Revised Standard Version and as it is the Bible I read the most often, and because it has more poetry than the NIV, it is my favorite. It is currently hiding in my garret. Books will do that when you live in a place long enough.

There's a hymn that has a line, "wherever man can go, thou shalt be there too." I remember that verse and it comforted me. It also led me to Psalm 139:9-10.

I wish I could say I came easily to faith. I did not. I came easily to church. Bellefield was down the street from Carlow College, and I figured, why not? I kept going and eventually got involved in a Bible Study with two other women. We studied the names of God, from the Old Testament. It was poetry. I wanted to be like these women, who were in their thirties and wrestling with the concept of being a Godly single woman. So I stopped doing some things. I stopped calling Mr. Morning. I wrote him a "Dear John" letter with a dinosaur stamp. (I thought it was poetic, you know, dinosaurs are extinct?) By the beginning of the second semester of my freshman year of college, I professed faith. What was it that got me over the edge? The last study in our book on God's names asked if I knew where I'd spend eternity. I realized I didn't know, and I wanted to. I walked to Bellefield the next day, hoping to find the campus minister I really liked, but she wasn't there. I'd heard about discipleship and I thought it sounded like a good idea. Instead, I met with the other woman campus minister and she told me about justification and sanctification. We met a few other times, but I never felt like I'd been "discipled."

I have felt that lack a lot. I'm the older brother in the story about the Prodigal Son. Wait a minute, I didn't get MY share! But God has provided for me in other ways.

I spend a lot of time alone. I take walks. I read books. I drive to work. In these places, God meets me if not daily, every couple of days. Where I have not had the companionship of people discipling me, I have had the words of Kathleen Norris, Anne Lamott, Madeleine L'Engle, Brennan Manning, John Eldredge. I have experienced the words of the Bible as a double edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and a discerner of the thoughts and intentions of my heart (Hebrews 4:12).

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I look forward to being someone's wife, someone's fiancée, someone's girlfriend. I know it will not end my loneliness, or my solitary life, but it will be a sharing of at least a bed, a bank account perhaps, and a future. I expect it will require more of me than has ever been required of me in a relationship with another human.

At the last Christmas party, I witnessed folks younger than I in every stage of young adulthood: early dating, late dating, engagement (rings) and wedding dates, married for a year, married for two years, pregnant. I felt out of place--where do I fit in this picture?

Don't get me wrong--I don't wish my life had turned out otherwise--I have a great life. But I haven't met someone yet who makes me laugh, who makes me want to care for the rest of my life. Even though I know I want the whole package and maybe a house with a picket fence, I am scared shitless, too. I wonder...

Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me...

Even there.

Lead me on, LORD. I will follow you. In your beautiful timing, and not a moment before. Teach me patience and prescence and take my hand.