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My times are in your hands

December 12, 2025

Haggai 1:1-15 |Psalm 31| Revelation 2:18-29 |Matthew 23:27-39

My dearest friend Lisa Johnson loved the poem “Footprints,” and frequently gave me gifts that had that poem on it.  The poem is a strong reminder that there are times you need God to carry you.  My dad had a term for when life or work pressures seemed to be making a demand on you that pushed you to the limit.  He called it being “under siege.” Psalm 31 starts with David being under siege. He asks God to deliver him.  My mom was probably one of the most devoted people to God that I ever knew.  She started her every morning at 5:30 a.m. with God, giving him a significant deposit of her attention, as she started each day.  Mom would sometimes reference that she knew something in her “place of knowing.” I alway believed that place came from her strong relationship with God.  Psalm 31 reflects David being under siege, but realizing that God could carry him through it, and into the peace of that “knowing place.”

The advent seasons of 2008 and 2009 were the hardest of my life.  I was a caregiver for both of my parents. My dad died December 20, 2008, and my mom died December 22, 2009.  I definitely felt under siege during that period but also felt that God was there with me. Reading Psalm 31 made me think immediately back to that time, and how God used a gift He had given me…my poetry…to enlighten me during Mom’s final weeks. Once my dad died, I felt such responsibility to watch over my mom. After all, right before he died, he had told me that she completed his life.  As the holiday season was upon us in 2009, my mom declared clearly, despite her dementia, “all I want for Christmas is to be with Donald (my dad) and my mother.”  She was becoming clearer in the goal, & the destination. I believe God was gifting her that clarity, because of their close relationship.

Fifteen days before my mother passed into Life Eternal, a poem came to me. This poem now seemed almost prophetic. Yet it was only mom who truly, somewhere, understood the reason for heightened excitement and expectation. She began packing her things a lot and telling us she “had to go.” It became her ardent mission to get to that place where she would flourish in the days of Light. I believe it was both Dad and God calling her.

My poem was titled “Still…” It starts with the line, “Still watching o’er Your Beloved.”

Then comes witness to my revelations on the situation. “When I woke this morn, Your voice spoke clear with volume — ’Twas time to light the purple candles of Advent….a season of expectation…but of what? The glow of the candles and passing of days will only tell us the when and what.  ‘Whose voice?’ I ask. ‘Was it God or Dad…was it you?’ With either, I will heed your bidding, and she will flourish in the days of Light.” God, through His gift of my poetry, had helped me understand that it was certainly His will, and my Dad would be the beneficiary to receive his beloved.  Verse 5 of Psalm 31 relates the same words said by Jesus on the cross, “into your hands I commend my spirit.” I remember the power of those words, when I sat in the Providence Performing Arts Center, with my beloved friend and sister Lisa, when we saw “Jesus Christ Superstar.” I was with Lisa when she left this world, never expecting that she would leave this world before me, despite my being “under siege” for 18 years with medical problems that few knew about or understood. Through it all, God carried me, as is illustrated in the “Footprints” poem, and Lisa did all she could to support me along the way…it was God, through Lisa. It seems that David felt his afflictions gaining on him, too, but he soldiered on with God’s help. His words, “I am forgotten as though I were dead,” show the depth of his suffering. My dad had Parkinson’s for 16 years, and he modeled how to keep going each day.  Now I look forward to completing my mission here, and joining Lisa, my mom, and my dad, entrusting myself to God. As David says to God in this psalm, “My times are in your hands…save me in your unfailing love,” and later, “How abundant are the good things,” and then, “Praise be to the Lord, for he showed me the wonders of his love…”  Amen.

Heidi Johnson