He holds me up

Then I found freedom

It was one Wednesday night in early April, 36 years ago that I discovered something on campus, a livelier form of religion and devotion that put me at odds with everyone apart from the community that embraced me.

There was some turmoil I did not understand going on in my life, one in which I was at school and attended lectures without any inkling of what was going on therein. Sadly, there was no one I could explain my predicament to, but I found the distraction of student union representation and religion to keep my head as things swirled around me.

My sanity mattered more

That I was a failed student probably did not surprise me, though the reasons were quite different from what my parents and some friends thought. I was fighting a battle for my sanity whilst everything else fell apart around. Maybe, I would have liked for everything to all come together, but what is a life without the trials and tribulations that make for the quality of experience?

Indeed, I can say that now, when in the midst of it, I was both helpless and hapless, yet taking each day as it comes writing the story I can tell today. Seminal in those experiences were events quite a few and one of which was the music of the time.

It’s a new sound

I had heard some Christian music that did not suggest the singers were ready to explore the talents they had, pedestrian, uninspiring, perfunctory with words that just needed mouthing and hands clapping without a sense of rhythm like God was a boring sad and an unfunny deity of the sort that mother’s religious proclivities embraced.

Then I heard Andraé Crouch, the whole concept of praise and worship changed, the uplifting music that you will learn, sway and dance to that you were moving too well to even consider clapping. You were dancing before the Lord and even if you become naked in the process like King David once did, it did not matter. [BibleGateway 2 Samuel 6:14-23 (NIV)]

He holds me up

Too many songs that became the way by which God held me through the difficult and seemingly impossible times, for I did not see any light at the end of any tunnel, I groped in the darkness and the Lord led me through the valley of the shadow of death to new green pastures and still waters, but it was a long journey through that wilderness where I strayed at times and predators were on the prowl to devour me. I was spared, saved, and protected, to tell a better a story.

Today, from my Amazon Music subscription I decided to ask Alexa to playback Andraé Crouch and that has been on for hours, reminding of how in times of trouble, I need not be troubled, I am held by the righteous right hand of God and my unsteady gait on the rocky path is kept firm in the knowledge that I will not fall, nor will I come to any harm. We have a destination and it is good to the end. [Andraé Crouch on Amazon Music]

The timely message on Our Daily Bread – God Holds Us just reinforces the sense, feeling and assurance that it is well with my soul. I want to get my maracas out for this.

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