He Is Here
Thou art
near, O Lord;
and all
thy commandments are truth.
--
Psalm 119:151
Good friends invited us to their
cabin on a lake. There would be boating, swimming and fun in the sun. I planned
to wear my long winter coat or maybe a choir robe. But with an hour to go before
the stores closed, and on my birthday to boot, I knew I could procrastinate no
longer. I HAD to go buy a new swimsuit.
The one I have is so old that the
hot new song when I bought it was "Do the Hustle."
That's what I had to do in the
fitting room, attempting to funnel my aging East German border guard bod into
the four square inches of fabric for which they want to charge you $90. I did
some funky disco steps, trying to wriggle in to a modest two-piece jobby with
the little swim-skirt down below, and the little swim-shirt up top.
Do you know how powerfully stretchy these
swimsuit fabrics are? The real cause of global warming! They're clearing whole
rainforests for the rubber and spandex for these things. We need a renewable
resource alternative. You know, like ETHANOL swimsuits. Yeah: cornhusks for the
supportive bustline, cornsilk for a little padding. . . .
But I digress. Somehow I tugged on
the little swim-skirt, trying not to notice in the mirror that I looked like a
ballerina hippo in a bad dream in a Disney cartoon.
I pulled the top down over my head.
Floopety floop! A tight roll of swimsuit fabric formed under my armpits.
There was no way it would roll back
up. There was no way it would roll down. It had undergone dressing-room fusion.
I looked like a topless, pink
Pillsbury Dough Girl with a thick rubber band under my arms, just above two strangely
contorted and displaced . . . you know. . . .
Predictably, at that moment, the
fitting-room door slammed open.
A lady gawked. You can imagine where
her eyes fell.
"Oh," she said. "There's someone in
here."
With an unforgettable look combining
horror, amusement, shock, disgust and pity, she backed out and slammed the door
. . .
. . . leaving me a topless, pink
Pillsbury Dough Girl with shattered self-esteem.
I already struggled ENOUGH with how
I looked in a swimming suit that was fully ON.
"Attention, shoppers," a cheery
voice interrupted. "The store will close in 10 minutes. Please take your
purchases to the cashier."
Somehow, I wriggled out of that boa
constrictor of a top, and tried on the remaining candidates. A one-piece looked
the least bad. I hurried out with it.
Did the cashier know what happened?
I felt very embarrassed, very fat, and very old.
Much to my surprise, she smiled, and
said, "This is so cute. This will look good on you."
Nice try. But I was still crushed.
I started up the car and sat there in
the darkness. Emotion swept over me. I went into Major Pity Party Mode. I'm fat!
I'm old! What a bad birthday! I'm going to look horrible on this trip. I'd
better bring a big towel, and wrap it around my own face.
Tears welled up. My throat got very
tight.
Backing up, though, I saw that the
license plate on the car parked behind me said:
I AM HERE
The song playing on Christian radio at
that moment was "Be Near" by Shane Barnard:
Be near, oh God / Be near, oh God / Your nearness is to us our good. . .
.
God is here! He is near! He doesn't
want me to feel so bad about myself.
Didn't He promise to always be with me?
Why hadn't I taken my feelings to Jesus, first?
I rasped tearfully, "Oh, Lord. . ."
. . . and as soon as I'd said it, I felt
releaser. I knew everything would be OK. This time, the tears flowed in a good
way.
He saw. He knew. He would make me feel better. He
always did. See? I was chuckling about the look on that poor lady's face already,
wondering how she would tell the story when she got back home.
I may be fat. I may be old. I may
look like a cartoon character in a swimming suit.
But I have an all-powerful,
ever-present, perfectly loving God with me always.
He is here. Always.
He knows I'm a Pillsbury Dough Girl.
He loves me, anyway. †
