All My Life You Have Been Faithful

I was baptized into Christ as a believing adult in the summer of July 1983 (according to the film development date on back of some old photos) in a creek on a property owned by the minister of a church I had become involved with during my early college years. Those who planned to be baptized that Sunday were asked in advance to come prepared with some type of statement of faith to verbalize, or a scripture to speak that might help communicate this step of faith and commitment.

I came prepared with the beginning of Psalm 116 and recall my nervousness when being asked if I had anything I wanted to share, when it was my turn to be immersed. My nervous voice said some version of, “I love the Lord because He has heard my voice and my supplication, therefore I will call upon Him as long as I live.” (Psalm 116)

While I know, somewhat, why I might have picked that scripture from among those which I had come to know during the preceding year and a half — having connected with Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship and a bible study in January 1982 and having very limited bible knowledge from my Methodist-raised childhood–at sixty years of age I marvel at how meaningful this scripture remains in my life.

I am thinking I picked it not only for its meaning to me at that time, having to do with my zeal and enthusiasm for my new life in Jesus (which included feeling welcomed into a family-like community), but there was a worship song we sang in those years based on that Psalm which I found myself drawn into. During those years up through around 1995 I would often enjoy the vibrant Messianic worship dance/movement that increasingly became a part of that community during those years and there was a particular dance to that song called I Love the Lord.

I have a few photos from that day. I was a live-in summer aid to a young woman with cerebral palsy, and had also made friends on campus with a Japanese student named Kaoru. Both women wanted to attend this church service at this “Barn Church” in Kemblesville, PA and witness my baptism, for different reasons. My friend Cindy, pictured in the wheelchair, had a number of spiritual conversations as we got to know each other and was very curious at what being baptized in a creek might be like. And I had also had spiritual conversations with Kaoru and she and I hung out together at times, making Japanese food and exchanging language and other things in friendship.

It is not unusual for me to start my day behind the computer with inside office tasks and to put on my worship music playlist (which contains other praise music as well). And sometimes a certain song or hymn will find a sweet spot in my soul and I can literally play it on loop for hours. That may be a foreign idea to many, but I will play one single song (sometimes a non-religious song, too) repeatedly if it seems to have the ability to repeatedly soak into me. Whether a worship song or a feel-good blue grass piece that keeps my feet occasionally dancing and skipping (literally!) as I go about my daily tasks, I play the piece until I’m fully saturated with it.

Of course, many days I simply listen all day to the rotating playlist, not pausing on any one song.

Today, I’ve had “All My Life You’ve Been Faithful” (actually called “Goodness of God”) on loop, while I’ve done various things, paused it at points, then resumed. At one point I was checking FB messages and thinking about God’s faithfulness to me. I glanced at my own FB profile picture, and then rotated through the “profile picture album slide” and pasted each one below. It was an interesting, contemplative exercise with the worship song playing along, as I saw many images of myself or my life that for various reasons were my FB profile picture. I went all the way back to March of 2009 when I first joined.

Many of us create our image/avatar (or other expression of who we are) to be used on social media with some type of intention. People have a variety of approaches and reasoning. I currently am in a season of mixed feelings/relationship with social media as things continue to change, heal, grow and evolve both inside me, and in our world, where the dark things seem to be waging strong war against the things of light. The way in which I have always seen the world as an open and generally optimistic place is being greatly challenged right now.

It can be good to pull back, and re-evaluate different things. I’ve been quieter on social media, more selective about what I share, for various reasons. It seems to be a pruning that will help me re-direct aspects of my life and self and put my energies where they seem best put. I’m an intense person, no doubt. And if I want to share my thoughts on any matter, I like to put them here, and then re-share the link. Those who want to read will read, and that way, direct shares on the FB medium can be shorter, more visual, perhaps. More centered around my art, business and blog writing, perhaps.

At one point I had nearly 900 FB “friends”–many of which were those I had somehow connected with that had been from various points in my life journey or business contacts–and beginning around June 2021 I felt a need to keep paring back. I also pared back a lot for various reasons around April 2022. I currently keep my friends list relatively short, and my settings more tight. Before 2019 I also believed in “public” settings for everything. I joined FB in March 2009 and it has been the source of connecting in many positive ways with those I might never have heard from again had it not been for social media.

Some of my closest, most treasured current, meaningful friendships came about as a direct result of social media connection. At the same time, social media connection has brought a variety of the most difficult things my life has ever held–in many ways surpassing my first 18 years of life in terms of some types of impact.

These difficulties have sliced through and pierced a number of different relationships–from a few friends and family which relationships have been altered in nature for various reasons–to many, many other dreadful things. While I can’t categorize things as all good or all bad, I will say that my life and that of my sons and family changed forever in July 2010 and to be fair, there were other lives that also changed at that point through FB encounter.

Having our lives changed by various encounters and decisions is nothing new. In fact, it was a seemingly random situation where a male student (just a friend) who used to escort me back to my dorm after a night class the fall of 1982 did something that likely changed the course of my life (and I am not saying that I regret that, just noting how easily the trajectory of our life can be changed at any point by some seemingly innocuous thing). He and my would-be first husband (that I met for the first time in that conversation) and I were standing on South College Avenue discussing things from a Religions of Mankind class. Kevin turned to the man who ended up becoming my first husband of 20 years, and the father of my two precious sons, and asked if he would walk me back across campus that night, since he had an errand up on Main Street in Newark, Delaware.

Life is full of mystery…and God is above all matters. The interplay of God’s purposes being accomplished between destiny, randomness, free will, good and bad decisions and so much more can never be fully fathomed. But I can whole-heartedly say in this moment here, along with this worship song and the Psalm 116 scripture, “All my life You have been faithful.” And God is faithful not only to me, but to those I love most dearly. I believe that, though I cannot always perfectly see the way forward in a number of things at this moment in time.

I hope that you, too, can do the same. There are moments when this truth is too obscured–believe me I have those moments. All humans have life seasons where the way forward is not very clear, or seemingly not possible, nor to know the beginning from the end. And that is where I, and you, and all who are in this world, must continue to walk in faithfulness, and with faith, when we cannot see forward.

We see in part. We make any given decision based on what we know at that time. Even the imperfect or wrong decisions are ultimately swallowed up into His love and faithfulness and goodness (as the song I’ve listened to today so beautifully expresses). For we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. (Romans 8:38)

Purpose in life is a powerful thing. It can make the difference between thriving and simply surviving. So many these days are struggling to find their way–in this I am not alone. Many are simply surviving in a variety of ways. All may look well on the outside, but inside there is a hungry heart. Social media, as we know, provides many ways that we create both real and unreal things, in some sense.

I really want my life to be more and more about creating that which is real, and creating as much art and beauty into the world as possible with whatever time God gives me. And creating art and beauty is done daily in so many ways. Wherever you are, whomever you are, you can create art and beauty, too, using your own giftings.

I want to invite those reading to take some minutes from their day and listen to this beautiful expression (will provide YouTube link) while scrolling through their own FB profile picture album. (Go to your page, click on photos/albums/cover…clicking the first one you can arrow-scroll through each picture you have uploaded as a profile picture since you first joined FB…)

As I scanned and pasted in those old actual photographs from an album one holds in their hands, created in 1983, I think of the proliferation of images these days with our smart phones. There are pros and cons of course and I definitely utilize my phone camera (quite often, maybe too often) as evidenced in the many FB profile pics. I’m just pointing out the obvious here…anyone closer to my age or older remembers other times when creating images was a different process. Perhaps we were more intentional, but perhaps not as intentional as one hundred years ago.

I will put the actual lyrics to Goodness of God below…but I ponder what would it be like to change them up for you?

“All your life He has been faithful…”

~Shalom~

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Goodness of God (Song by Bethel Music)

I love You, Lord
For Your mercy never fails me
All my days, I’ve been held in Your hands
From the moment that I wake up
Until I lay my head
Oh, I will sing of the goodness of God

And all my life You have been faithful
And all my life You have been so, so good
With every breath that I am able
Oh, I will sing of the goodness of God

I love Your voice
You have led me through the fire
In the darkest night
You are close like no other
I’ve known You as a Father
I’ve known You as a Friend
And I have lived in the goodness of God (yeah)

And all my life You have been faithful (oh)
And all my life You have been so, so good
With every breath that I am able
Oh, I will sing of the goodness of God (yeah)

‘Cause Your goodness is running after
It’s running after me
Your goodness is running after
It’s running after me
With my life laid down
I’m surrendered now
I give You everything
‘Cause Your goodness is running after
It’s running after me (oh-oh)

And all my life You have been faithful
And all my life You have been so, so good
With every breath that I am able
Oh, I’m gonna sing of the goodness of God
(I’m gonna sing, I’m gonna sing)

‘Cause all my life You have been faithful
And all my life You have been so, so good
With every breath that I am able
Oh, I’m gonna sing of the goodness of God
Oh, I’m gonna sing of the goodness of God

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