A Place of Refuge

 

“Have mercy on me, my God, have mercy on me, for in you I take refuge.”

—Psalm 57:1a

On extremely rare occasions when I was very young, my father’s family would gather at my aunt’s home. The cousins—who were, for the most part, strangers to me—would try to play together. The cousins delighted in playing the game “Hide and Seek.”

I greatly disliked the game. I actually disliked these visits with the cousins. As an only adopted child, I was used to playing alone. I also had to endure whispers from some of the female relatives about my origin. These women didn’t realize I already knew that I was adopted—as if adoption was some terrible disease. They would nod to one another and remark, “Of course he’s not really our blood. He’s not really a part of our family.”

In any case, when the game began, I would try to find a place of refuge where, securely hidden from the cousins, I could safely avoid being found for as long as possible. I was usually quite successful. In fact, I remember one time when the game had been over for nearly an hour before anyone thought to look for me. It was wonderful.

When the difficulties of life come barging into our lives, they often bring a terror far greater than the fear caused by a bunch of cousins he didn’t know was to a five-year-old boy. At such times we need a place of refuge, a hiding place. The Psalmist understood this need to find a trustworthy place of safety when he wrote these words in Psalm 57:1:

Have mercy on me, my God, have mercy on me, for in you I take refuge. I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed.

Yes! There is a truly safe refuge in time of distress. That refuge is found under the shadow of God’s loving wings. There we may calm our fears and catch our spiritual breath. There we can become renewed, in the shadow of God’s Presence.

 

Based on a blog originally posted on Friday, July 24, 2015

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