We Are Walking on Holy Ground

A few weeks ago, my firstborn sang a solo at her church. During the school year, she attends church in the far away city where her university is, and it has been an adjustment for both of us. For me, church is, in part, sitting at the front with all of my little children in a row, even though my second baby towers over me now, and the third and I are currently wearing the same size shoe. It happens quickly, this growing and wing spreading, and before you know it, your pew of little children changes into a pew of gangly teenagers, and then dwindles as one by one they head out to make their way in this hard, wonderful world.

The song she sang is a familiar one: “We are standing on holy ground, and I know that there are angels all around. Let us praise Jesus now. We are standing in His presence on holy ground.” I watched the livestream, and her clear voice rang out across the large congregation. An enormous choir stood, and its voices swelled with the confident refrain, here in this place, we know it’s true: we are standing on holy ground.

I listened to the recording several times over the course of that first day, thinking about the church and how wonderful it is that God has given us this family of believers, and when we join together in worship we can truly say with all conviction that this is a holy moment. But as the week went on, the hard parts of this wonderful world pressed in. A friend has cancer. So many unanswered questions lay before him and his sweet wife. Other friends are dealing with personal turmoil of different kinds. Hurting people seemed to be everywhere I turned, and my own mind and heart felt burdened and overwrought. We are still waiting, more than two years later, for the moment when we can officially call our sweet foster baby our own. I felt like I was trying to continue walking with confidence, but my feet had begun to sink into the narrow path.

The following Wednesday, I was in charge of a big children’s event at church, complete with messy games that had taken some doing to put together. As I was driving to the church, my heart pounding at the thought of ensuring that this whole evening worked out great, I turned on the song that my nineteen year old baby girl had sung. In that moment, as anxieties filled my heart and the burdens of the week’s bad news weighed on me, through my own precious little girl, now a precious young adult, the Holy Spirit ministered to me. I thought about how even this, messy games in a parking lot, is holy ground. Not only that, but in every moment, God is present. So, couldn’t we honestly say and believe and cling to this truth? Every moment is holy when we know the Lord.

It’s so sweet to walk into a church and know that God’s people are gathered for worship. Of course He is near. A holy moment. But isn’t it a holy moment, too, when you are sitting in a doctor’s office, holding hands with your faithful wife, enduring the bad news with faith? As believers we tread on holy ground in every school building, nursing home, leafy forest floor, and in every possible scenario we could dream up. Isn’t it just so thrilling to know that when we praise Him He is near, and when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, there too, there especially, He is wrapping us up in His presence. Carrying us. Seeing us through. Never leaving, never forsaking.

I felt that acknowledgement of His presence wash over me on my short drive to the church that evening, and I glimpsed the grinning two year old in my rearview mirror. She was singing nonsense words, mouth wide open, arms extended, head thrown back, experiencing the sheer joy of beautiful, God-glorifying music. I thought of the sweat-inducing experience of getting her in the car just two minutes earlier, this child with so many ideas of things she wants to do, none of which include getting in a carseat. It occurred to me that I am walking on holy ground in the baby wrangling, too. He is near. He is witness to the long days and the triumphs and failures of my return to the world of toddlers. And He brings meaning to everything, from meetings with doctors to messy games to girls in choirs to singing babies.

He abides. On this narrow way, His presence makes all the difference, and this holy ground itself sings like a toddler in the backseat: God is with us.

So I’ll take the next step, and the next, and the next. Nothing on this path is useless or meaningless, not when He is near. And He always is. So I will sing the refrain myself, hoping that you, too, will see this truth along the narrow path. We are walking on holy ground. Keep going.