Part the Waters, Lord – rebeccaellenson.com

One night during my sophomore year at a small Lutheran liberal arts college, I was taking what I thought would be a shortcut through the Student Center, up a short flight of stairs and through what was normally an empty lounge area. But, that night, it was full of people listening to two women singing. I was in a hurry, and thought about turning around and taking another route, but one of the singers was my cousin, Dorthy. I stopped to listen as they sang, Part the Waters. I’m so glad I did—it’s a song that 40 years later still sounds in my head with its comforting words. You can listen to it by clicking the link below:

The lyrics go like this:

When I think I’m going under, part the waters, Lord
When I feel the waves around me, calm the sea
When I cry for help, oh hear me Lord
And hold out Your hand
Touch my life
Still the raging storm in me

Knowing You love me
Through the burdens I must bear
Hearing Your footsteps
Let’s me know I’m in Your care
And in the night of my life
You bring the promise of day
Here is my hand
Show me the way

When I think I’m goin’ under
Part the waters Lord
When I feel the waves around me, calm the sea
When I cry for help, oh hear me Lord
And hold out Your hand
Touch my life
Still the raging storm in me

Knowing You love me
Helps me face another day
Hearing Your footsteps
Drives the clouds and fears away
And in the tears of my life
I see the sorrow You bore
Here is my pain
Heal it once more

I always associate that song with the text for today:

But now thus says YHWH, the one who created you, O Jacob, the one who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have vindicated you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.

For I am YHWH, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you. Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you, I give people in return for you, nations in exchange for your life.

Do not fear, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you; I will say to the north, “give them up,” and to the south, “do not withhold; bring my sons from far away and my daughters from the end of the earth- everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.” Isaiah 43: 1-7

This is one of my go-to scriptures. I use it with people when they are in a bad way, when they are suffering, or dying, or losing a loved one, or so low they think they’ll never smile again. I call on it myself when I’m feeling overwhelmed or discouraged or afraid. When I hear this text and imagine what it would sound like to hear the voice of God speak these words to me, I hear it in my mother’s fiercely protective, familiar and loving voice. She was always able to comfort me, to calm the raging storm in me, to encourage me. I know how blessed I have been to have known the love of a close and healthy family. It’s easy for me to make a step from knowing I am loved by my family, to knowing God loves me.

I understand that for some who haven’t known that unconditional parental love may struggle with the image of God as a parent who loves so extravagantly. Yet that is the message Isaiah proclaimed: God will be with us and will protect us. God created us, formed us, named us, called us, and says we belong to God, that we are created for God’s glory.

As a mother myself I resonate with this text—for I named my children. They were formed and made inside me- they are mine, they are precious in my sight, honored, loved. I would give whole nations in exchange for them if I had nations to give. I want to encourage them and build them up and instill in them the belief that love will see them through the mightiest floods or fires, that what matters most cannot be touched by rivers of water or flames.

This image of God that I hold is reinforced in the previous chapter of Isaiah where the prophet tells us that God says, “I am YHWH, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you…For a long time I have held my peace, I have kept still and restrained myself; now I will cry out like a woman in labor, I will gasp and pant.” Isaiah 42: 6 and 14. We see God as a mother taking her children by the hand and keeping them safe, having labored to bring them to life. Throughout this whole section of the prophet Isaiah, called the Book of Comfort, we find the love of God expressed passionately, assuring the people of God’s fathomless, fierce and tender, gentle and strong commitment and devotion.

God’s estimation of us as beloved, cherished, named and claimed as children of God can be difficult to take to heart. Such an identity can take time to be believed and absorbed. May we take the time to soak in the love of God and live from the sense of self that comes from knowing God is with us, in all things. Amen.