Outstretched Hands

I heard "Outstretched Hands" by Starfield on Pandora a few months ago, and it's become one of my favorite songs. I'm in a strange, contemplative-yet-optimistic mood today, and the lyrics keep nudging their way to the front of my thoughts:

Could I talk to You?
Are You listening?
Would You let me ask the questions
That burn inside of me?
I am reaching out
I am holding on
Feel like one of Your affections
But not quite like I belong
Like I belong

I am numb today
Everything's a blur
I've seen too much to deny
Too little to be sure
Like a prodigal
Like a distant son
I can see You from a distance
But I'm too ashamed to come

Chorus:
Will You see me through this valley?
Will You hold my outstretched hands?
As the world caves in around me
Will You help me understand?
Help me understand, help me understand

I am scared to fall
Scared to carry on
Am I losing to the cynic
After running for so long?
There's a child in me
Lost in mystery
But it's buried underneath the earth
Longing to be free

This song speaks to me on many levels. I've felt so lost inside my own despair over the past few months; it's hard for me to see my infertility struggles as a valley instead of the whole road. I was someone else before this, and I want desperately to reconnect with the girl I used to be! Don't get me wrong, there are some parts of the "old me" that needed to be ripped away, and it took a storm of this size to do it. But I miss being happy...hopeful...inspired. Instead, now I feel like I have lost to the cynic.

And I can so relate to the picture of someone standing alone in a desolate valley, reaching to heaven with all of her might, desperate for God to grab hold. Sometimes when I worship alone I stretch my hands toward the sky until I feel like my arms are going to come out of my shoulders (in a pose that somehow I can never recreate during a yoga workout...). Desperate for God to reach down and touch me, heal me, reassure me.

I wonder what I'll say someday about this time in my life. I want so badly to come out of the valley holding my baby high, and proclaiming the goodness of God. It occurs to me this morning though that maybe my testimony will be simply that God held my hand.