Immutable

“Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations.  Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting You are God.” –Psalm 90:1-2 (ESV).

The word “immutable” means not capable or susceptible to change.  The writer of Psalm 90, though writing in the language of Hebrew poetry (and this particular Psalm is thought by scholars to have been written by Moses as the Israelites came to the edge of the Promised Land) conveys the sense of God’s immutability:  “from everlasting to everlasting You are God!” he declares.

This past week has been full of realization of God’s immutability and how God has been—and continues to be—our dwelling place in all generations.  I had a week in “my” beloved mountains, a time to rest and some of the beautiful days choose roads on which to sight-see that had unbelievable beauty, corridors of gold from the resplendent show of nature’s seasonal color.  Many times as one curve gave way to another and yet a more brilliant shower of color than the last splashed before my eyes, I was awed by the beauty and thankful for God’s handiwork.

This week I heard of deaths of two good friends and attended the funeral of one.  Saddened by the deaths, yet I was at the same time rejoicing that these two did not have to suffer further from age and debilitating diseases and that each knew the Lord.  One in his last day on earth told his wife that he had seen her mother (who had passed several years ago) and her beloved mother said, “Tell my daughter I’m waiting for her!”  The immutable promises of God gave the family members who remain hope and comfort in knowing that those who had passed were in eternity with the Lord.

In the mountains I was able to visit the gravesites of my great, great, great  grandparents on my maternal side.  We know the knoll on which they were buried and the graves have plain fieldstone markers, but this present generation does not know which grave site is the third great grandfather’s or that of his wife (third great grandmother) and at least two other members of their family.  In the place from which he had migrated with his family to come to Georgia, he and his father operated an iron foundry to supply metal for arms for the American Revolutionary Army.  I like to think that these ancestors knew the immutability of God and declared, as did Moses, “You have been our dwelling place in all generations.”

This week I added two more wonderful great grandchildren to my growing family. James Quinton and Amelia Elizabeth Jones, twin son and daughter were born to Rev. Matthew and LaTasha Sansone Jones on November 7.  They have had some premature birth trauma and are still in Neonatal Intensive Care, but improvement in their condition comes every day.  We pray that they will soon be out of NICU and be able to go home and make normal progress as healthy babies.  We rejoice in these new births and anticipate what they can become in the Lord through His immutable power.

Inspired by Psalm 90:1, Isaac Watts wrote the beloved words of the lofty hymn we like to sing:  “O God, our help in ages past, Our hope for years to come, Our shelter from the stormy blast, And our eternal home!”  The time of rest, the beauty of the mountains in fall, death coming to friends, visiting my great, great, great-grandparent’s graves. and the birth of babies have all been strong reminders of God’s immutability and strength.  Isaac Watts termed it well:  “Before the hills in order stood, Or earth received her frame; From everlasting Thou art God, To endless years the same.”

 –Ethelene Dyer Jones. 11.10.2013.