River

"...It's coming on Christmas They're cutting down trees They're putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace, Oh I wish I had a river I could skate away on...
these are the beginning lines of a song; River by Joni Mitchell from her album named Blue. This song is like comfort food to my soul, although it isn't a song for a little girl, It's about love and loss, but maybe because it had such a sweet yet bittersweet beginning it meant something to me. My sister gave me this cassette tape (old school!) the same year I got a Magnavox tape recorder. My mom gave me the recorder for my eleventh birthday in October. It was great because I wanted something of my own to listen to music on and tape recorders were big then, the olden days IPOD! The extra bonus was that I could record a message to my daddy who had left us a few years earlier. My sister would take it to him to listen to; at the time he was in the hospital and I was a bit scared to see him then. It was a hard time for this little girl, wanting so badly to be with my daddy, but knowing it was impossible. I was told he was scary, not to be trusted...a very bad man? I believed it, I was nine when he left. That's not to say he wasn't all those things and probably more, but the lack of a relationship with the one other person from whom I am from is without any doubt life changing. What would I have gained from that relationship that I missed? That part of my life will always be a mystery, but I can say that I feel blessed to learn of a heavenly father who took away all the hurt and pain and filled my life with mercy and forgiveness and I can now see that I am not any worse for the wear. Different maybe...but if I had not had to grow up too soon and later found my way into the comforting arms of the Lord, my life now may have turned out differently and that would be sad. I am a blessed woman, full of wonder still at the amazing power of forgiveness and the unrelenting way that my Jesus never lets us out of his grasp. He has protected me and my family; He has made a way when there seems not to be one and He has cradled my own babies in his arms, guiding them along the way, calling them to Him, just as He did me. The Joni Mitchel song about Christmas was not even about Christmas at all. It is about finding a place to escape from a life in pain; a life of fear and hopelessness. That was then...this is now! I listen now with a grateful heart and the place I want to fly away to someday is into His loving arms, where grace abounds.