In my prayer group last week, we spent time in Lectio Divina on Isaiah 43:1-7. The verses that spoke to my life circumstances were these: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you.” Another translation (The Message) reads, “When you’re in over your head, I’ll be there with you. When you’re in rough waters, you will not go down.”

I definitely feel like I’m in over my head these days. Too many changes. Too many transitions. All of them good. All of them exciting. Most of them, I’m sure, in God’s plan. And yet, it feels like the waters are rising and I’m not sure how long I can keep treading water.

The biggest river to cross? Joel moves from our home to Safe Haven Farms, “a community of choice for adults with autism,” in a few months. We’ve dreamed of a place like this since Joel was a little boy. We’ve talked about it, prayed about it, planned toward it. Finally, the dream is becoming a reality.

And I am totally freaking out.

Who can love Joel as well and totally as his father and I? Who will make sure he eats the right foods, gets enough exercise, says his prayers at bedtime? Who will cover him up when he kicks his blankets off at night, make sure his socks are on straight before he puts on his shoes, monitor the volume on his tape player as he listens through his headset? Who will laugh at his silly jokes? How often will he get out into the community? Will they find a church he likes, where the worship is vibrant and he can fling his arms into the air? Will he like living in a house with peers instead of Mom and Dad? How about Mohamed, his caregiver for the past seven years? Will he stay with Joel as he says he will? Will it break Joel’s heart if he leaves?

And how about us? Me and Wally? Our lives have revolved around Joel and his needs for so long. Granted, Mohamed has done the lion’s share of the work for the last seven years, but still…what will mornings be like, with just the two of us? I can’t imagine not hearing the toilet lid crashing down in the early morning; or opening my eyes to see a sleepy guy standing in a darkened doorway, staring at me in the middle of the night; or that same guy, wide-awake at daybreak, climbing into bed and making funny noises in my ear.

I dreamed the other night that Wally and I dropped Joel off at a mental hospital. The kind you read about in Charles Dickens. Horrific. A woman sat on the curb, sobbing. I asked her what was wrong. She said she’d dropped her sister off at the hospital 30 years before, hoping they’d get her medications straight so that she could come home in a month or two. Instead, the hospital quit giving her meds, and never released her. Suddenly, Joel streaked across the road in front of us, buck naked, screaming.

A nightmare that left me toss and turning, twisting the sheets.

So what does this have to do with Isaiah? The waters and rivers referred to in the scripture would have been easily recognized by the Israelites as the Red Sea or the Jordan River. Both metaphors of transition for our spiritual ancestors - The Red Sea, as the transition from slavery to freedom; the Jordan River as the transition from the desert into the promised land. Even in transitions as huge and life-changing and freeing as these, people fear for their lives. They have nightmares. They thrash about, afraid of drowning. They attempt to go back to the lives they knew before. They’re afraid to cross over into the unknown future, even if that future has been promised to them as a land of milk and honey.

As I came out of meditation on this scripture, I caught a fleeting glimpse of a memory of me and my dad. I was a little girl, and we were swimming together at the beach (really, a sand pit) in the town where I grew up. The water was over my head, and I was bobbing up and down like a cork. I felt weightless, joyful, secure, free, totally without fear.

This is what God promises me in the midst of this choppy sea of change. This is what God holds out to me when I feel like I’m drowning - a life vest of security and freedom in His presence; His presence right there in the sea right next to me.

The day of Joel’s move to Safe Haven inexorably approaches. I know I will continue to grieve the changes that will bring about in his life and in ours. That’s okay. Change is hard. But I also know that God is with us in the midst of all the change. That on the other side of that river - the other side of this transition - awaits a land of milk and honey. A promised land that holds more than we could ever dream or imagine.

A future and a hope, planned by Him from the beginning of time.