Wish you could see
Matt Hammitt, “Even Though”
Wish you could know
Can you hear My voice
Through the winter cold?
Almost ten Decembers ago, through the winter cold, I heard a verse I’d never heard before from a book in the Bible I don’t think I’d ever heard of either. Our pastor asked our family to read this verse and light the candle on the Advent wreath at the start of the service one week. My husband read Habakkuk 3:17-19:
17 Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,
18 yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will be joyful in God my Savior.
19 The Sovereign Lord is my strength;
he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
he enables me to tread on the heights.
The service was about six weeks after Cody’s epilepsy diagnosis, six weeks of walking in a fog from the diagnosis itself as well as lack of sleep from listening for nighttime seizures. (And it just dawned on me that the pastor maybe chose us to read this verse because of our new reality…I’m a little slow sometimes…)
Regardless of the intention behind it, I heard this verse and it grabbed me:
“yet I will rejoice in the Lord…”
I had a choice in walking into the new unknown of epilepsy – and I used this verse as a lifeline as the walk got harder and harder.
Recently, I was working through a YouVersion Bible plan called Grieving with Hope. This year I decided to read plans using the New Living Translation (fyi, there are a lot of translations of the Bible!) and found myself reading Habakkuk again – but it read a little differently:
Even though the fig trees have no blossoms, and there are no grapes on the vines; even though the olive crop fails, and the fields lie empty and barren; even though the flocks die in the fields, and the cattle barns are empty, yet I will rejoice in the Lord!
Even though. I’m not sure why, but that struck me in a new way. Especially when, a few days later, I heard the song “Even Though” play from a Spotify playlist I had created months earlier. As I so often do, I had forgotten that song, hadn’t heard it in weeks…months maybe?
THEN that same playlist played the song called “Even Then.” Ah yes, another forgotten song. This was an older one released in 2016. One I just happened to hear in 2019 on the car radio while driving home from a vacation that ended with a call from a friend: “Dude, your basement’s flooding.” Record snowfall, a rapid snow melt, and massive rains spelled destruction for our finished basement. And here are the lyrics from that song:
“And even when the waters won’t stop rising, even when I’m caught in the dead of night I know, no matter how it ends, You’re with me even then.” (You just can’t make that stuff up.)
Even though my son was diagnosed with epilepsy. Even when my basement is flooding and I’m hours from home. Even if Chuck has another stroke or Cody stops breathing after another seizure.
Even though…
Even when…
Even if…
Even then, I will rejoice in the Lord. Because I know He’s with me.
I also know I’m not alone in this; we all have “evens.” What are yours? Even though your loved one died too soon. Even when you can’t find a job. Even if the cancer treatment doesn’t work.
Did you know that even God has “evens”? Here are a few of His:
Even if your exiles are at the ends of the earth, [I] will gather you and bring you back from there. ~Deuteronomy 30:4
Even to your old age and gray hairs
I am he, I am he who will sustain you.
I have made you and I will carry you;
I will sustain you and I will rescue you. ~Isaiah 46:4
“Can a woman forget her nursing child,
or lack compassion for the child of her womb?
Even if these forget,
yet I will not forget you.” ~Isaiah 49:15
And finally, Jesus says,
“remember, I am with you always, even to the end of the world.” ~Matthew 28:20
He doesn’t make the hard things go away, our even thoughs and even whens – but He does add beauty to them. He sustains and strengthens us even during them. He takes our hand and gently touches the tears on our cheeks and then we walk through the hard winter cold together.
Wish you could see
Matt Hammitt, “Even Though“
Wish you could know
We will hold you again
Even though
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