Never Alone

Music is almost a constant in my life. I'm listening to it, reading about it, or it's playing in my head. Sometimes, a thread of a song will make me stop, think, research ... and write.

Today, a phrase from the Green Day song "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" started running through my mind - "I walk alone." I thought about it, and wondered why that particular phrase came to me. I don't walk alone ... but I have.

Look at Billie Joe Armstrong's lyrics and think for a minute.

I walk a lonely road

The only road that I have ever known

Don't know where it goes

But it's home to me and I walk alone

There have been times in my life when I've been there. On that road, feeling like I am truly alone. Never mind the fact that I have a rather large extended family and group of friends ... never mind the fact that the feeling could come when I was in a large group ... the feeling of being terribly, utterly alone.

Looking back, I realize where that disturbing sense of loneliness came from. It came from my refusal to reach out and grasp the one lifeline that is always there. Even though I dedicated my life to Christ when I was a child, I did not faithfully follow the path that God had set for me. There were years-more years than I care to think about-that He was no more than a strong presence in the back of my mind that I refused, for whatever reason, to bring forward. The amazing thing is that He never left me. Through the ups and downs of my life, through the things that I probably never should have ever even thought about (or done), though I turned sideways to block Him from my line of sight ... God never left me. What in the world did I do to deserve that?

I don't know. God does, because He put me here. He kept me alive as a preemie (against all odds) for a purpose that He alone knows. Now, I feel like I'm going through my days trying, somehow, to make up for all the time I lost. I'm never going to be a licensed minister, but that won't stop me from proclaiming my Lord. This may be the only venue that I ever utilize - but God has given me these words.

What song am I singing now? "Have Faith In God." It's credited to BB McKinney, but I can't verify that, and don't have a hymnal at hand to see who they give credit to. Whoever the author was hit it dead on in this particular song:

Have faith in God

when your pathway is lonely

He sees and knows

all the ways you have trod

Never alone

are the least of his children

Have faith in God

Have faith in God

I do. How very fortunate I am that he didn't give up on me. God, thank you, once more, for your many blessings. Help me to be what you know I can be, and help me help others.

"For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations."~Psalm 100:5 NIV