Musical Musings: "Held", Natlie Grant

Natalie Grant - Held
From the album Awaken

Two months is too little
They let him go
They had no sudden healing
To Think That Providence
Would take a child from his mother
While she prays, is appalling

Who told us we'd be rescued
What has changed and
Why should we be saved from nightmares
We're asking why this happens to us
Who have died to live, it's unfair

This is what it means to be held
How it feels, when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive
This is what it is to be loved and to know
That the promise was when everything fell
We'd be held

This hand is bitterness
We want to taste it and
Let the hatred numb our sorrows
The wise hand opens slowly
To lilies of the valley and tomorrow

This is what it means to be held
How it feels, when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive
This is what it is to be loved and to know
That the promise was when everything fell
We'd be held

If hope is born of suffering
If this is only the beginning
Can we not wait, for one hour
Watching for our Savior

This is what it means to be held
How it feels, when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive
This is what it is to be loved and to know
That the promise was when everything fell
We'd be held

This is what it means to be held
and to know
That the promise was when everything fell
We'd be held

This is what it means to be held
How it feels, when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive
This is what it is to be loved and know
That the promise was when everything fell
We'd be held


I don't really know where to start on this one. I'd heard it before, but when Katherine sang it in church yesterday, it resonated with me, and I've been thinking of it ever since.

I think we all forget sometimes that, just because a Christian is saved, just because they have the abundant life that Jesus promises (John 10:10), that we'll never have trials, never have difficult days. We forget that Jesus told us plainly that we would have troubles (John 16:33), but not to worry, because He overcame the world. The promise was never that we wouldn't have troubles, that we wouldn't have trials and heartbreaks. That's the point of Job; God never told him why He allowed Job to suffer. It didn't matter. The question isn't why do we suffer, it's how do we respond to suffering?

We all have things in our lives that seem terribly unfair. There are things that happen in and around us that any attempt to explain away just belittles. There are hurts that shatter the heart beyond our own ability to imagine how they'll ever be healed. Chances are good you know exactly what I'm talking about, you've survived a hurt like this, or you're still struggling through it.

Infertility is proving to be one of those heart-shattering hurts. I've dreamt of my children, woken from my sleep to find my dream so vivid, so real, that I had cradled my dream child in my sleep. I've named them. I ache to hold them, and yet I wonder more and more often if I ever will. I don't question whether God can give me children, I don't question if He is in control in the midst of this. I know He is. I know that, if and when He's ready for my husband and I to have children, it will happen, and we'll concieve. But in the day to day, faith in God in the salve I have to soothe this mother's heart that bleeds within me.

This is what it means to be held. Not to be kept from hurt, but to be held through it. This is what it is to be loved, and to walk each moment, each hour, each day, in faith that God is in control, and that nothing can seperate us from that love...not even the deepest heartaches.

The promise was when everything fell, we'd be held.