I'll take care of you

Sometimes you can read a scripture passage over and over, and then--then!--something different leaps off the page and into your heart.

This week, I was dealing with several problems related to health and finances, and my own problems were echoed in the national news, with the U.S. Congress trying and failing at repealing the healthcare act that keeps me alive and may actually improve a condition that has afflicted me for years.

It goes beyond suspicion to certainty that the congress-critters are trying to impoverish and kill Americans, in order to fatten their own bank accounts. My district congressman has at least a net worth of $35 million, and he's gung ho for the president's tax change proposal that would enrich him by more millions, while my pitiful subsistence income would be taxed at a higher rate.

Further, I live in a state where the commission that oversees utility rate increases has been "bought" with dark money provided by the utility's parent corporation. When the Phoenix heat runs 110F for more days every year, the electric company not only charges a high rate, but they demand a surcharge for "surge" energy use. Even keeping my cooling at an uncomfortably hot 83F, my electric bill is crazy high, and if I don't pay it, they'll shut it off and add a reconnect fee. So you see, this is quite a nasty stress I'm stuck with. Paying this obscenely high bill means that other bills have to wait for a little more income to trickle in.

There was terrible news of people dying for lack of oxygen or dialysis in the wake of Hurricanes Irma and Maria, and a man had been without diabetes meds for 10 days, still with little hope of getting them anytime soon. I wonder how I can help, when I'm struggling so hard to survive, myself. Since I can't donate money I don't have, and no one would ship the yard-sale-type-stuff from my garage, what can I do?

Many people would answer, "Pray." And I have prayed for those who are suffering, and for the unjust senators who want to be rich more than they want Americans to be well, and for my own financial situation. I also opened a Facebook fundraiser related to my soon-coming birthday, and several people have donated to the cause (not me) as a birthday greeting and a way of saying they care about me while they help the cause. (And two of them opened their own fundraisers.)

Last night, the church I work for as a musician posted a short Facebook meme that made me stop and look up the larger scripture reference before I reposted the image. It was a love note from God. Poetry. I've italicized the words that leapt out at me.

You survivors in Israel,
    listen to me, the Lord.
Since the day you were born,
    I have carried you along. 
 I will still be the same
when you are old and gray,
    and I will take care of you.
I created you. I will carry you
    and always keep you safe. Isaiah 46:3-4 CEV 

I'm a survivor. I'm always-single, and my parents passed without leaving me anything of their estates.  I have no safety net except God, and through him, my church. And today, the elder who administers the benevolence fund called to tell me that the church would help me with those overdue bills. He said several times not to worry, and that it was their responsibility and privilege to help me, because I'm their Christian sister. I'm safe. (But he still made me cry because of the gentle, kind love in his words that were not rehearsed, but from his heart.)

Financially, I'm a disaster. (It wasn't always this way--I had a home, savings, retirement investment, health insurance, etc., before the Great Recession.) But I am rich in other ways. I'm a daughter of the Most High God.  

So as I read that verse in Isaiah, embedded as it is in a chapter about war, something nagged me, like it was a love song I'd forgotten. But as I write this article at 1am, I remembered. It's this gorgeous song "I'll Take Care of You," sung by Steven Curtis Chapman. He sang it for his wife, Mary Beth, and I don't know if he connected it with the scripture from Isaiah. But since I've never been in any danger of being married, I've always thought of it as God's love song to me. 

I'll Take Care Of You

I'll take care of you

Don't be sad, don't be blue
I'll never break your heart in two
I'll take care of you
I'll kiss your tears away
I'll end your lonely days
All that I'm really tryin' to say
Is I'll take care of you

I want you to know that I love you so
I'm proud to tell the world you're mine
I said it before, I'll say it once more
You'll be in my heart 'til the end of time

I'll take care of you
Don't be sad, don't be blue
Just count on me your whole life through
'Cause I'll take care of you 

 

Stop whatever you're multi-tasking, and listen to this song. And sigh. And know that God is singing a love song over you. 

    

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Christy K Robinson is author of these sites:

• Discovering Love (inspiration)
• Rooting for Ancestors (history and genealogy)
• William and Mary Barrett Dyer (17th century culture and history of England and New England)

and of these books:

·          We Shall Be Changed (2010)
·          Mary Dyer Illuminated (2013)
·          Mary Dyer: For Such a Time as This (2014)
·          The Dyers of London, Boston, & Newport (2014)
·          Effigy Hunter (2015)
·          Anne Marbury Hutchinson: American Founding Mother (2018)