Hold Together
This post was originally published on May 18, 2007.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
We recite that verse in our church every Sunday morning. It's a hefty theological treatise about who Christ is, with lots of nice, churchy words scattered throughout.
But did you see that little phrase tucked in verse 17? Every Sunday morning I read it and sigh a very deep sigh:
...and in him all things hold together.
All things hold together. Yes. They do.
I'm sure a scholar of Scripture could expound on the theology of that verse for you in ways I cannot. Maybe "all things hold together" is speaking on the cosmic level, or the molecular one, about Christ's place as holder-together of the very fabric of the universe.
But it isn't theology I'm thinking when my child comes home from school broken-hearted or my daughter pours my moisturizer on the bed. Or my friend's husband leaves. Or one son tells me he hates his brother, or the dog throws up on the carpet. Or I feel like I'm standing at the outskirts of my own sanity, ready to walk away. Or Hubs is late for dinner or the garage door won't open or another young soldier dies in the desert. Or I've blown it, big-time, bigger than ever before, and I'm not sure where to go from here.
In him all things hold together.
When I'm holding on by a thread, or not even holding on at all, in Him there's rhyme for the reason, and footing on the slipperiest slope. I can't tell you how, or why, but it's right there in my heart--right there where all the pieces feel ready to fly apart.
Where things are spinning.
Where they hurt.
Right there at there very core of it all, something--some-One--holds me together and gently whispers the things a Father says.
Yes, He holds together the cosmos and the Church and the vast arc of human history, but He also holds together the heart of His messed-up child.
No wonder I sigh.
