I woke in the middle of the night with this phrase blazing like a neon sign inside my head “Never is a long, long time.”  I’ve had this happen to me before.  Out of a sound sleep, my eyes spring open to the presence of words that are dropped into my spirit. They have texture, weightiness, importance.  But what in the world do they mean? 

I sat up, ruminating on them.  There was nothing that my conscious mind was thinking about, no dream to cause me to be nudged awake.  Oddly, my mind drifted to an obscure song I remembered hearing on a record album my grandmother played by Andy Williams.  “Until the Twelfth of Never.” 

You ask me how much I need you, must I explain?

I need you, oh my darling, like roses need rain

You ask how long I’ll love you, I’ll tell you true

Until the Twelfth of Never, I’ll still be loving you

Maybe it’s the fact that I am turning another year older.  My mind, my spirit, my heart — all are working overtime to recount the last year and — consequently, the ones before that.   As if there needs to be an accounting, an inventory of my days.  I cannot help but see all the “nevers” I never thought there would be. 

You have them too, I bet.

I never imagined the state of certain things, relationships, disappointments.  I never would have believed it possible that I would witness proclivities in our nation, so bent on deceit and disrespect.  In my present stage of life, that there would be some people I never thought would be absent, and some I never anticipated to be so present.  It’s all such a conundrum of forevers and nevers. 

But God.

There are so many things that happen to us in this thing called life.  We start out with our heads in the clouds a bit — imagining how all our plans and dreams will just roll out like a red carpet before us.  Things we never think will happen, don’t.  We are in control, after all.  We determine our destiny.  

Or so we think.  

Another image came to me as I pondered my “never” phrase.  It was of a bag of Scrabble tiles, letters, that are taken out, and with them we create words that mean something to us.  We all hope for the right mix of vowels and consonants.  We all want for what we have been given to spell for us everlasting fortunes of love, faith, health, provision.  Sometimes, a tile is missing, and no matter what we do, we seem unable to manifest the words, the emotions, of what our hearts desire.

I understood then what maybe God was telling me.  

The only thing we are to fully know, is that God will never leave us.  It may feel as though He does at times, when we go through storms and difficulties.  It may seem as though all is lost forever when people and circumstances let us down.  Things will happen that will cause our hearts to break, our tears to flow, our humility to overtake us.  Pieces of us go missing for a time.

But until the twelfth of never, God will still be loving you.  He’ll still be hearing your prayers, healing your hurts, mending your broken places.  Without you even knowing it, He is guiding your progress in the direction of where He is taking you next. 

What I know about words, is that they mean different things to different people. What they say and mean in one season, don’t always hold up in the next.  God’s Words, however, are the same yesterday, today, and in all the tomorrows to come.

Our stories are still being written so that we will understand how He is working all things out for our good.  He provides us with just the right mix of vowels and consonants, nevers and forevers, so that nothing is missing, nothing is wasted.  Sometimes, we have to wait a bit to see it all come together.  

But it will. 

His love, His promises, never end.

Never is a long, long time.