Leaning on the Everlasting Arms - of God

 The lyrics go like this:

"What a fellowship, what a joy divine

Leaning on the everlasting arms
What a blessedness, what a peace is mine
Leaning on the everlasting arms

Leaning, leaning
Safe and secure from all alarms
Leaning, leaning
Leaning on the everlasting arms

What have I to dread, what have I to fear
Leaning on the everlasting arms?
I have blessed peace with my Lord so near
Leaning on the everlasting arms"

(songwriters: Elisha Hoffman and Anthony J. Showalter)

For many years I stood in church and dutifully opened my Hymnal to sing this particular song at one of the various Baptist churches I attended throughout my lifetime. I always say everyone should start out a Baptist, and remain one for at least 12 years and then maybe as a teenager, when they begin to rebel, they can make a choice to attend another church or no church at all, however, the 12 solid years of being a Baptist will at least instill in their lives, hearts, minds, souls, and every breath, that Jesus Christ is Lord, and here are the details to every last story in the entire Bible -- there will be a test in the form of Bible Drills! It will happen.

    "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms" - - yes, please.  There was a time, so many times, when I was flopped into the arms of the Lord, drug up from the depths of my own self pity by His gracious hand, and those arms of His reached around me and held me close so I knew I was safe; nothing could harm me.  There were times I ran from those long arms of His, and hoped I could out run Him, but we all know how that ends, right? C'mon, we don't all have to hold degrees in Rocket Science to know that no one can really hide from God; not me, not you, not anyone - - we will get to our own personal Nineveh if we are to go, and we should seriously just own it.

    "What have I to dread, what have I to fear" is the one line I sang lifelessly as a kid as a teen, even as a young adult, but the second the doctor looked me in the eyes and said "You're pregnant" I knew exactly what it was that I was going to be fearing...my dad. I knew I disrespected him, I knew I would have dishonored him, and I knew that he was going to be so very disappointed in my choices. I was 23 years old, old enough to be on my own, and I was living on my own, but that didn't mean I wasn't still Daddy's little girl! I was. I remembered within my Baptist bible teaching that what I did, even if I was engaged, was just not really what a daddy wanted to hear - - and then the rest of this song flooded my heart. The part that says "I have blessed peace with my Lord so near",  I knew God would make it all better if I just returned to Him and asked for His  help. Wow, He helped big time!

    Now, I don't know if God was just being sweet to me, or if He had something more tangible in mind, but when my sister Linda gave birth to her two beautiful children, they were both girls. Reuben, my son, the one I (yes I did) named after my father, was and is the only boy in our family. He is my dad's grandson, the only one.  I gave my parents two more grands, but they were both girls too.  Reuben is the boy. Talk about brownie points; and no, you're not supposed to do that, and no, it's not right, it's not fair, it's really sexist, and yeah, we get that, but still, it is what it is, and Reuben, my son, saved my hide with my dad. For 53 years my dad went by his middle name Wayne until he found out I was going to name my son after his first name and suddenly that ancient old Bible name didn't sound so odd or off the wall to him.  Reuben.  It literally means "Behold, my son" or in simple terms "It's a boy".  Boy, oh boy, Reuben, my son, is one heck of a boy!  I was going to need those everlasting arms of Jesus for the rest of my life! (Thank God)

    Another artist, Steph Macleod of Scotland, wrote a song titled "One Day at a Time" and in that song he repeats a phrase that really hits hard too; it is, "Surrender, is the answer, I believe in a higher power".  Wow, wow, and again wow. Yes, yes, I do. I thoroughly and whole-heartedly believe in a higher power, there just isn't another reason or answer as to how things work out good when after I screw them up so badly. God and God alone is the reason I am still standing, still breathing, still working, still holding up, still loving, still writing, still thanking Him. I believe in a higher power, but not just any higher power, but the ONLY higher power there is, and that is our God, our King, Jesus, the true living Son of Almighty God. 

    "Safe and secure from all alarms".  I am safe. I am secure. I couldn't think of any other way to live other than to just let go of any and all things that cause suffering, pain, stress, anxiety, fear - - what is fear? I don't know it now. I am not always the stoic and strong minded, but I am always the strong willed and I will always return to the closet to pray (while clutching my rock) and I'll always and only pray to my God through His Son, there just isn't another way - - anything else would be to give up those everlasting arms, and no thank you, that will not do.  Another song, another hymn just wrapped itself around my brain just now, the start of it goes like this:

"I stand amazed in the presence
Of Jesus the Nazarene,
And wonder how He could love me,
A sinner, condemned, unclean."   by Charles Gabriel. 

I do. I stand amazed.  I have no idea why or how He could love me, but He did, and He does, and that alone is reason to just....breathe and thank Him.

My daddy Reuben Wayne Stringfellow, son of Reuben Jefferson Stringfellow, and my son Reuben Andrew Stringfellow.