I'm Here

Just before Christmas I was helping my mom and dad retrieve the boxes and boxes of Christmas treasures from the attic via a tall metal ladder.  Mom, crouching in the small crawl space handed me box after box as I stood half-way up the ladder.  I, in turn, would hand down each box to my dad who would stack them in piles on the garage floor.  Presently, there was a hold up in the assembly line and Dad announced that he was going to take a stack inside and disappeared, boxes in hand, through the kitchen door.  Meanwhile, a large flat box of ornaments began descending toward me and I took the cumbersome load in my hands.  Thinking I'd take it all the way down the ladder myself, I began inching backward only to find the box pulled my weight awkwardly to the side and that my elbows and belly were not the greatest at gripping ladder rungs!  Suddenly, I heard a voice below me. 

"I'm here!" 

I looked and saw no one.  Only brown cardboard filled my vision. Nonetheless, without a second thought, I dropped the cumbersome load into what might have just as well been thin air -- and it held, caught by Dad's ready hands.  It was only then that I saw him... his face peering up at me from behind the large box that was now his to deal with. 

"I'm here."  .... I had heard the words and instantly trusted. 
I couldn't see him.  I hadn't heard him come back through the door.  I had no sense whatsoever that anyone was below me.... My precarious predicament had captured all of my attention, yet in one fraction of a second I recognized his voice and knew that if he said he was there, he was.

Suddenly my heart filled with faith as the experience became a Word, quickened to my spirit.  I remembered some time ago praying to know God in a new way.  I said, "God, tell me one of your names... "  In my heart one word resounded:  HERE.  I said, "Yes, I know you're here, but what is your name?"  Again I heard firmly, "Here."  Here?  Could that really be a name of God, the ever present one? (smile)  I pondered this conundrum and only a few days later stumbled across a blessing, in the name of Jehovah-Shammah, The Lord Who is There (I guessed here vs there is a matter of perspective:  it's there to heaven; here to me)  In Ezekiel 48:35 God promises his presence to his exiled people, naming the new Jerusalem, "The Lord is There."

I know he wanted to remind me of this by letting me act out this quick living parable. "I'm here."  How often have the precarious predicaments of life overwhelmed my vision, making help seem so far away?  How often have I struggled under the awkward weight of circumstances, trying to make a safe landing on my own? How often have I neither seen nor heard nor felt the presence of Help, only to find it waiting expectantly for me drop my load into trustworthy hands? 

"I'm here."   I recognize his voice, and if he says he is here, he is.  I just need to let go.

Read someone else's wonderful message on the meaning of Jehovah Shammah.