Preservation

I will give you the treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the Lord, the God of Israel, who summons you by name. (Isaiah 45:3)

Aaron took this portrait of preservation, so that we will always remember.

The very base of the toilet tank, shattered in a star shape from the force of my head as it hit the top.  The force from top to bottom shattered the tank all the way to it's base.

The razor sharp edge of the porcelain pieces that could have easily cut me and bled the life out of me as I fell through the shards to the floor.

I returned this toilet to dust with one sharp blow from my head.  Aaron described the sound like putting a ball-peen hammer to porcelain, as head hit porcelain and porcelain hit porcelain.  But God preserved me.  He says dust you are and unto dust you shall return and I hold the keys to death and hell. (Genesis 3:19 & Revelation 1:18)  He also says that all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be (Psalm 139:16).  Every time I have shuddered in fear over the unknown, every time I have descended into the blackness as I passed out, every time I woke in the ER to alarms going off and staff shouting for help and my body shaking as though it would never stop...this verse has comforted me.  From high school and all through to the present.  I do not need to fear the hour of my death is now.  He knows the hour and the time, and it is the perfect hour and time for me, and for His plan.  He will shepherd me when that moment comes, and I will not be alone.

Miraculous that, once again, it was not then.  Although all the circumstances dictated that I should go to heaven that moment my head hit the toilet, or in the frantic hours that followed, it was not the time for me to go.

And He is faithful, beyond preserving my life, to preserve everything else...my brain, my emotions, my talents and abilities, my joys and heartaches, my relationships, my will.

He turns bruising into beauty and, indeed, upholds the broken reed.  (Isaiah 42/Matthew 12)

Though the mountains fall,

Though the earth should shake,

Though the seas should roar with all the heartache

Though our hearts should pound,

Though our throats be dry,

We will lift Your Name on high

You have been a shelter Lord

To every generation, to every generation, Lord

A sanctuary from the storm

To every generation, to every generation, Lord

~ Shelter (to Every Generation), Bill Batstone, 1992 ~