Joel’s Hope

The Hiding Place

Have you ever wanted to just get away from it all? I suppose the answer to that question would depend upon what ‘it all’ is for you.

In the late fall of 1957 and early spring of 1958, as a five year old, the ‘it all’ was the confusion, sense of loss, separation anxiety, and hurt brought on by the separation and eventual divorce of my parents. Simply put, I was a five year old who was missing the person who was supposed to be one of the most important and nurturing individuals in a child’s life; his mother. This situation was the result of my mom’s decision to leave her family and move to Texas where several of her brothers and a sister lived. My father, Joel Lee Bullock, was forced to file for a divorce which was eventually granted, along with full custody of myself and my brothers Greg and Clifford. At this time Greg was seven and Clifford was three. So there we were, a farmer scratching out a living on eighty acres with three small boys to care for.

To say that I missed my mother would be an understatement. Often, in an attempt to cope, I would curl up under an end table in the living room, cry my little eyes out, and just be by myself for a while. These were moments, sometimes extending into longer sessions, where my pain and sorrow was more than a child should be required to endure. After doing this a number of times, my dad learned to look for me under that same end table when I disappeared. That end table provided a sense of security and comfort to me while trying to understand everything that was happening in my life and deal with the pain and loss of my mother. I did not and could not understand or comprehend all the recent events and drama surrounding the separation, divorce, and overnight destruction of my family. What I did know was that my mother was gone and I missed her terribly. What happened in the few square feet of this ‘hiding place’ was all I could control in my small world. At least that was some comfort for a five year old boy that didn’t know anything else to do in a time of personal confusion and utter distress.

Devotional text: (Psalm 46:1-7)

(Key verse) “God is our refuge and strength, A very present help in trouble”. (Psalm 46:1)

In the above text, the Psalmist is writing about the sense of absolute certainty of God’s divine protection felt by the people of Israel while the world around them was in shambles. The Egyptians and the Assyrians were wreaking havoc upon the world during this early period of history. The writer states that God,’ Immanuel’, translated “God with us,” was known from the experience of the Israelites, to be a stronghold and a refuge during turbulent times. As the Psalmist goes on to say, even though everything around us is in turmoil, God is our help. I like what this text says when the writer stated, “A very present help in trouble.” Many theologians write that, as applied to the experience of the Israelites, this statement would literally be a testimony saying, “found by experience to be so.” My experience with God as a ‘present help’ started under that end table and continues to this day, over six decades later. I have learned what the biblical lesson teaches us, that God is always present. When our world is shaken and things seem to be going sideways or falling apart, God is never absent. Verse 5 promises us that our God is with us and available to us from the earliest hint of trouble and difficulty. We are not alone to fight the battles this world can and will throw at us. When the sun rises on our hardships, God is already there and working on our behalf. As I read this passage of scripture over and over, I am reminded of the divine care of a loving God. The same God that protected, guided, and cared for the people of Israel over 2,500 years ago. The same God that was with that five year old under the end table.

At the risk of taking scripture out of context, I like to see myself as that ‘river’ (V.4) that the ‘streams’ of God, His blessings of grace, are still flowing into today. From those early experiences in that ‘hiding place’ to the present, I have personally experienced God as “A very present help in trouble.”

Let us take comfort from the words of the Psalmist that reminds us that regardless how difficult things may become in our lives, God is not only present, He is our refuge and our protection. When we find ourselves in those times, places, and situations where we don’t know what to do, when we think the ground is shaking under us and we have no control of the events happening around us, we need to remember the confidence the Israelites expressed; God is in control!