“When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up, the flames will not consume you.” Isaiah 43:2 NLT
I had not studied this verse until my friend Hope introduced me to it. In August of 2023, Hope was diagnosed with cancer. As she was a woman of faith, it was no surprise to watch her cling to scripture and God as she walked this path. She had told our friend Wendy and myself that she wanted to walk this path the “right” way, the way God had intended for her to walk it, leaning on Him.
She did that each day and one of the scriptures she clung to was this verse. Hope believed, as I do, that as believers and children of God, He is walking right beside us each step of every day. When we face difficulty, deep waters of grief, times when we are not sure how to go on, this verse reminds us of how much God loves us. He is there through it all.
The scripture says that we will not be consumed and in our human nature we sometimes believe that to mean that we will be saved from the difficult situation we are in, that what seems inevitable will not happen or that we will be healed. However, not drowning or being consumed looks different in God’s eyes. We are not always able to avoid the deep waters, the difficult times or the flames but we can remember that God is there to comfort us, to give us the strength we need sometimes to simply stand where we are and for us always to lean on.
Whether we learn from the difficult time and mature in our walk of faith while we are still here in earth or our mortal bodies fail and we emerge on the other side in Heaven, we have still made it through. That is what this verse said to Hope as it became evident that she was not going to be healed and remain here but be healed and join our Lord in Heaven. God was with her through the deep waters, she did not drown in the rivers of difficulty and she was not consumed by the fire.
As Hope walked each day of her battle with cancer, she was walking beside our Lord, leaning on Him and receiving His grace to face this battle. Now, Hope is walking with our Lord in Heaven and she is healed! I thank God for that.