I couldnât love this verse more than I do. It has met me on some of my very weakest days like a balm for my soul. Itâs been a deep-breath , heart-grounding verse that has whispered in my weary hours: âYou are not alone.â This is also the verse that grounded a song that I wrote with Lauren Daigle called âBe Okayâ. The chorus of that song says this:
âLift your eyes to the hills. Remember where your help comes from.
Lift your eyes to the hills. Youâll never face a valley alone.
Cause even when youâre heart is breaking, and youâve gone and lost your way.
Youâre gonna be okay.â
And that is the comfort of Psalm 121, the reminder, that no matter what we are carrying, we are first and foremost carried in the arms of the God who knows us best, and God never slumbers or sleeps, so we can rest in knowing that the help of the One who made us is ever-present. I hope this verse will be like a deep breath, a sigh of relief for your soul, that through your hardest days, even until your very last breath you take on this earth, You are watched over and held by the God who made you.
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I love good food. Anyone else? I am HERE for all the flavors, for the dishes Iâve never tried before. I love to eat. And hereâs the thing, God sets a banquet table of goodness for our souls each day. Weâre invited. We can eat our fill and be satisfied with the richest of fare. So many days, I forget. I think Iâm on my own. I think I have to muster up enough energy or goodness or love, when Heâs sitting there with a full banquet table just ready for me to come sit and be filled up in every way I need to be.
Oh that I would taste and see more often. Every time, I remember. Every time I come to that beautiful table set lavishly with His love, to His word, or even breathe a prayer of desperation, I am met with mercy, grace, kindness, and love abounding. I am carried when I canât carry on. I am satisfied when my soul is hungry. My thirst for goodness and peace is quenched.
So bring your parched mouth and soul today to the goodness of God. Stumble and trip into His presence. He has more than enough for you and for me.
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It has been a HEAVY season for us and our people. We have been walking through the valley of the shadow of death in ways I never hoped we would be. It never feels right when the life of a child is taken early. Cancer is a thief, and for all of our days, weâll be missing our precious cousin Bailey, who took her last breath at just nine years old. Our desperate prayers for healing didnât get answered the way I would have hoped. Iâve got questions. Weâll all walk around with a Bailey sized hole in our hearts, and the world is darker without her light shining here on the earth.
This month is heavy for Nashville as well, as we just crossed over the 4th anniversary of the tornado that devastated so many March 3rd of 2020. There have been other storms that have wreaked havoc since as well. And then, as March 27th approaches, we remember the senseless loss of the lives of our precious kids and teachers at the Covenant School. I want to weep just writing it all out. Being human just absolutely breaks your heart wide open a lot of days. Nothing will bring back those precious people, and nothing will ever be the same for those families and communities that lost so much. Death stings. I know that we sing songs that chant triumphantly, âOh death! Where is your sting?â But I am here to report that the sting of death is alive and well in my own bones, in my soul, and in the hearts of any human who has lost someone they love. Iâm raw and it hurts still. I just want to be clear about that.
I canât shake the sting of death, but there is something else present that I also cannot shake, and it is the presence of a God who weeps with us. In the lung rattling sobs Iâve let out over the past few months, grieving our loss of Bailey, yes, but grieving a thousand other losses as well, I have encountered, once again, the mystery of a current of Love. It is a Love that doesnât demand that I have faith or pull myself together. Itâs a Love that holds me as I come apart. Itâs a Love that wraps me in its arms and lets me weep, and whispers, âI know it hurts. Tell me where it hurts.â It is a Love that Iâve encountered in the Psalms over and over again, because the Psalms are spaciousâŚ.. they are full of doubt, desperation, wrestling, waiting, messes, fear, darkness, and they are full of remembering, faith and love and hope and light.
Psalm 23 has met me this year in the depths. Itâs comforted me in the literal shadow of the valley of death, and it has whispered to me, over and over again, that I am not alone. Because death stings, yes, but God sings just like the spring does, âDeath isnât the end, love.â
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A few years ago, I started singing a different scripture every Monday on Instagram. And for years (over 100 melodies shared!), SO many of you have been asking me to make a record of some of these scripture songs. Today, I get to say, I HEAR YOU. I've been listening to you all these years, and..... I made a Psalms record for you! It's called All of My Days, inspired by Psalm 23, and it is coming April 12th. Today, the first single is out! Psalm 139 - "Where Can I Go?" is available now, and the full record is available for pre-order!
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Hello to my fellow sojourners!
It has been such a delight to hear from so many who have picked up my book, Fighting Words, and found comfort and hope in the promises of God laid out on these pages. It's been even more wonderful hearing stories from so many people who have taken me up on the invitation to memorize scripture. Hearing how God has spoken through His word to so many of you through this book has been a gift I'll never stop treasuring. Iâm smiling wide with some of these stories running through my mind as I type this, so it is with great joy and a smile stretched across my face that I welcome you now to this of Fighting Words: 100 Days of Speaking Truth into the Darkness, coming April 16th!!!
This new addition carries ten extra devotionals and one more beautifully printed scripture memory invitation. Why ten more devotionals now? Quite frankly, I didnât realize how this book would become for me like a stake of ebenezer stones made out of paper and ink, that remind me of how God has met me, encouraged me, and transformed my forgetful heart through His word. I also realized that there were some âliferâ verses, as one of my grandmotherâs calls them, that I didnât include in the first edition. âLiferâ verses are the ones that have held me steady through the storms and shadows over the years. If they were stones, theyâd be smooth from years of my carrying them around in my pocket and reaching for them in moments where I desperately needed to be reminded of mercy and truth. There have also been others that have grounded songs Iâve written and have found their way to grounding me over the past few years. I found myself in shock that I didnât include them, so theyâre here now!!!
Although the book won't be available until April, you can pre-order your copy now on my website, Amazon, or at Lifeway.com!! Pre-orders help retailers know how many books to order before release day, so it's very helpful for all of your favorite authors and we thank you greatly.
I'm thrilled to continue the journey of memorizing scripture and burying the truth of God's word into our hearts together and of course, you can always find many of my mini-devotionals over on Instagram each Memory Monday and Fighting Words Friday.
Stay tuned this week for more exciting release updates... đ¤
PRE-ORDER: www.ellieholcomb.com/devotional
This verse always hits me deep. I think because Iâve had a LOT of seasons of crying out to God from the depthsâŚ.depths of loneliness, depths of longing for people I love to be healed, depths of heartache, depths of depression, depths of feeling misunderstood. Have you been there? In the dark night of the soul when it feels like that morning wonât come? Long seasons of seemingly senseless loss and suffering, long seasons of life not turning out like you hoped it would, long seasons of feeling lost in the shadows of anxiety, worry , and depression.
Lord, have mercy. I think most of us know these seasons, and whenever I read this Psalm, it reminds me that Iâm not alone in the dark nights of the soul. I hope it reminds you that youâre not alone too. As it turns out, the morning always comes, and God always hears our cries for mercy. For me , God doesnât always answer my prayers in the way that Iâve hoped He would, but He does hear me and meet me , even when Iâm in the lowest and darkest valleys. I hope these words remind you that God hears you too.
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Waiting can be one of the hardest things in the world. It can stir up a deep restlessness in us that is hard to overcome. But God tells us to be strong and take heart in the waiting, because ultimately, we are waiting on Him and his promises. And there is no one more trustworthy or more faithful who is worth waiting for.
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This verse is so well known and such a beautiful promise. I have found great comfort in these words over the years, but in seasons when my heart was aching, it felt harder to believe. It felt hard to read âI shall not be in wantâ when my soul felt left in the dust, longing for so much, for a different outcome to the story I was walking through. Have you ever felt that way when reading promises like this in Scripture? It can be so confusing.
Sometimes seasons of âbeing in wantâ descend upon your normal from out of nowhere, and sometimes the âvalleyâ seems like it is just where you will always live, but I can honestly say that I have known Godâs comfort and restoration even in those kinds of seasons. I have found that even in the valley, when God is shepherding us, our soul really does have what it needs. We are not in a state of âwantâ when it comes to His nearness and tenderness . . . even if our current view of the world looks dim and dark.
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How amazing does this sound? âCome with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.â How often do you do this? Is it hard to get quiet for you? I feel like with my phone ringing and buzzing and alerting me every time a friend posts a picture, the coat I was looking at goes on sale, or the latest tragedy strikes via my news feed, itâs hard to get quiet. My watch thatâs on my wrist will even buzz at me if Iâm still for too long telling me to MOVE. I think movement and work is good. I truly do, but those come to me naturally. For me, it takes work and intention to REST. Sounds crazy, but I am learning to turn my phone off, to be still, to meditate on beauty and truth, and it takes a herculean effort to get there some days. But guess what? I have not one regret about taking time to rest and to be quiet in the presence of the One who loves me most and knows me best.
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