From the recording Time Gives Way
With dutiful resignation, and a backpack slung over one shoulder, he slid into the Uber to make his plane while I sat on the curb helplessly staring through angry tears. I felt completely abandoned and he felt completely misjudged. How can two people who share so much live so dismally alone?
I forced myself to my feet, to get the kids ready for school, picking the uneven pavers back to the house. But as I pushed past the overgrown juniper branches I was suddenly checked. By Presence. An intervening awareness of strength and compassion that took my soul by the shoulders and looked me in the eye. Mid-step. Instantly the words of Jacob in the Bible came to me. The guy who’d destroyed his family for self-interest and then fled for his life, crossing water and wilderness. Waking from a dream of angels climbing a ladder right over his sorry head, Jacob too bumped into Presence. He said, “Surely the LORD is in THIS place; and I knew it not.” I went into the house and wrote this song down.
You and I are not alone. And what if the most desolate, shaming, angry space is exactly where heaven is working out our future? God is in the wilderness and sometimes in the junipers.
Lyrics
I had the strangest dream last night where my tears had soaked the ground / there were angels overhead, they were goin’ up and coming down/ I'm a lifetime from my start, I’m a million miles from home / have I come all of this way to know I'm not alone?
'cause surely you're here where I have no sight / moving with power under cover of night / heaven is close, above all my fears / I didn't know, but surely you're here
the roads wrap ’round this sphere, and if I run from end to end / I end up here when I come around again / night has never felt so dark, day has never dawned so grey / but dark to you is light and night is like the day
And surely you're here…
here where the angels tread, renew the promise of my life / where stones have made my bed, I will return with sacrifices of thanks when you bring me home again
'cause surely you're here…
heaven is so close, right above my fears / I may not see you, but I know You’re here / no eye has seen, no ear has heard / waiting, waiting for the word / heaven is so close, right above my fears/ I may not see you, but I know You’re here / surely you're here