EVEN IF

I was listening to this song today and was wondering if I could really say with conviction what the lyrics say?

Sometimes all we have to hold on to

Is what we know is true of who You are

So when the heartache hits like a hurricane

That could never change who You are

And we trust in who You are

Even if the healing doesn’t come

And life falls apart

And dreams are still undone

You are God You are good

Forever faithful One

Even if the healing

Even if the healing doesn’t come

Lord we know Your ways are not our ways

So we set our faith in who You are

Even though You reign high above us

You tenderly love us

We know Your heart

And we rest in who You are

Even if the healing doesn’t come

And life falls apart

And dreams are still undone

You are God You are good

Forever faithful One

Even if the healing

Even if the healing doesn’t come

You’re still the Great and Mighty One

We trust You always

You’re working all things for our good

We’ll sing your praise

I would like to think I could say these lyrics with conviction, but I am not sure.  I really struggle from time to time with the God who can do anything and chooses not to.  It's not that it has to be my way, it's just that I don't like to see people suffering with no end in sight.  I have a friend whose daughter married a man who already had a child with autism.  She adopted his child and then when they divorced she shares custody.  However the boy is now 17 and the father seldom keeps his dates of shared custody.  This boy has become increasingly violent and has been attacking his mother as well as some other behavioral issues.  We have been praying for quite a while for calmness for the boy and that a residential treatment center would become available for him.  There doesn't seem to be any improvements or end in sight.  I have another friend who the list of things that have gone wrong in her life are way too many to list here.  It would be enough that she has a 14 year old daughter that has never spoken, never walked and is on a ventilator and requires 24 hour nursing care.  One simple prayer request that goes answered is that she have consistent nurses show up for their shifts, but quite frequently my friend gets the call that no nurses are available.  Those are just two examples of when I say "God why wouldn't this be in your will, or why wouldn't you do this?"  I know God is God and I am not.  But the question, when these situations and others go on do I praise Him anyway?  Does my faith remain strong?  Can I say "I know your heart and I rest in who you are"?

And then as all these thoughts are going through my mind another song comes on and it resonated with my heart as well.

Well, everybody's got a story to tell

And everybody's got a wound to be healed

I want to believe there's beauty here

'Cause oh, I get so tired of holding on

I can't let go, I can't move on

I want to believe there's meaning here

How many times have you heard me cry out

"God please take this"?

How many times have you given me strength to

Just keep breathing?

Oh I need you

God, I need you now.

Standing on a road I didn't plan

Wondering how I got to where I am

I'm trying to hear that still small voice

I'm trying to hear above the noise

How many times have you heard me cry out

"God please take this"?

How many times have you given me strength to

Just keep breathing?

Oh I need you

God, I need you now.

Though I walk,

Though I walk through the shadows

And I, I am so afraid

Please stay, please stay right beside me

With every single step I take

How many times have you heard me cry out?

And how many times have you given me strength?

How many times have you heard me cry out

"God please take this"?

How many times have you given me strength to

Just keep breathing?

Oh I need you

God, I need you now.

I am thankful that I have a God that allows me to question.  A God who doesn't punish me for having faith that doubts at times.  A God who allows me to ask "why"?  And yet at the end of the day, I have no choice but to trust in God's goodness and His promises.  His ways are not my ways and He has the big picture and I do not.  So I continue to cry out as I have blogged before "Lord, I believe, help my unbelief".

25 Year Anniversary Of Our Engagment

25 years ago today my sweet Steve asked if I would marry him.  I wish that I had pictures to share of that day but they are buried in a box down in the crawl space somewhere and I don't want to make Steve go find them.  But since I really haven't blogged about that day before, I thought I would today.

Our family was getting together for a reunion in Denver and Steve was going to come meet them all, and was going to ask my father for my hand in marriage.  Since my sister lived in base housing, it was rather crowded, so Steve had arranged with them to propose to me out in the camper, parked in the front of their yard. Steve had bought flowers and had music playing (don't remember what).  He was just getting ready to propose when we heard someone coming in the door and then my sister yell "Mel, get back here!" Her husband, didn't know we were in the trailer at that moment.

When Steve proposed to me he read Ephesians 5:21-33:

"21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing[b] her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— 30 for we are members of his body. 31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”[c] 32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband."

Steve then told me that he promised he would do his best to love me the way that Christ loved the church and gave His life up for the church if I would marry him.  Who could say "no" to a promise like that?  I was 35 and Steve was 36 when we got engaged, so we had both waited a long time to be blessed by God with our life partner.  I had determined that I would not marry anyone who was not a Christian.  But Steve far surpassed that expectation.  He has made me a better person.  His love for the Word of God has challenged me.  He is much more disciplined in spending time there than I am.  But I think God has used me to move Steve from head knowledge for a more emotional response to God.

We often tell people that we really don't know how our marriage works because we are so opposite of one another.  We really have very little in common.  One time we took a marriage course and it included a survey that would show us what we have in common.  We discovered we had the enjoyment of boating in common only to rent a boat and find out that Steve drives rather cautious and I like to go really fast :-)  We do enjoy sitting together each night and playing Wheel Of Fortune.  I would say also Jeopardy, but I cannot compete with Steve in Jeopardy.  He is far more intelligent than I am!  But our marriage works because the one thing we do have in common is the most important thing of all...our love for God.  We realize that we are here as servants of His.  My greatest joy is in pleasing God by serving Steve and He reciprocates by serving me.  He is actually better at putting his needs aside for me than I am for him, but because he is so good at it, I try much harder to do the same.

During our 25 years, Steve and I have had some hard times.  Two years into our marriage we were excited to be pregnant.  Steve named our baby Pat, because that could be a boy or a girl.  Shortly after our first trimester we lost Pat and Steve almost lost me as my blood pressure dropped so low they had to turn me upside down.  We were not able to get pregnant again because I had endometriosis and that caused a diseased ovary and tube.  They removed my right tube and left ovary and told us they were going to keep in place for God to do what only He can do (an opposite ovary and tube).  It wasn't impossible to get pregnant but improbable.  We didn't get pregnant and in 2003 I got uterine cancer and then had to have a complete hysterectomy.  Steve was my strength during these difficult times, but it wasn't till my accident in 2005 did I realize the depth of his love for me and the strength I would get from him.  When your husband wipes your bottom after using a bed pan, your relationship is put on a whole different level you have never imagined.  Helping me in and out of a wheel chair, pushing that chair to his own exhaustion.  He took on all the housekeeping chores and to this day he still does our laundry and helps with the dishes, vacuuming, cleaning the bathrooms and so much more.  Never complaining.  Then Steve brags all the time at what a great cook that I am.  He thanks me for meals even when I burn them :-)  He is willing to eat left overs.  I am not a recipe cook, I am a simple cook.  Things like meatloaf, pot pie, pot roast, spaghetti, crockpot chicken, but Steve is just always appreciative.

I would say that my favorite thing to do with Steve is pray with him.  We haven't always had a time of intentional prayer together, although he has always prayed for our meals.  But for the last 8 months we reinitiated a specific prayer and devotional time together and it has been a blessing.  Today I am thanking God for 25 years of faithful vow keeping and commitment from my husband.  In a few months we will celebrate the actual 25th anniversary of our vows and he has planned a surprise trip.  I look forward then to blogging more about marriage memories and what the surprise was.

Father God, thank You for the blessing of giving me the most wonderful husband for me.  Thank You that in 25 years I can honestly say that he has never not once kept his commitment to love me with the love of Jesus.  I do not take that for granted, for it is an amazing blessing!!  Thank You for the way You have transformed Him into Your image and thank You for allowing us to have these 25 years together.  I would love having the gift of 25 more with Him, but if You take one of us home before then, I thank You for the certainty that we will spend eternity together with You.  Thank You Father!

Motherly love

Yesterday, while Steve and I were eating lunch, we were entertained by our mother Robin feeding her three babies.  Mrs. Robinson (as we call her) would bring her babies something to eat and their heads would pop up out of the nest, beaks wide open and they would start chirping away, eager to accept whatever she brought them.  She would leave and then come back and it would start all over again.  I asked Steve, "do you think she does that from love or just by instinct?".   I don't know if all animals have the ability to feel emotions or not?  I know my Mother's dog, Yoshi, does.  He knows when you are not happy with him and he cowers, or he is so excited when you return home and jumps up on you or licks.

My main point is the animal instinct does cause the robin or other animals to care for their babies.  So why is it the one creation that for sure has emotions, intellect and instinct so often do not take care of their babies?  I have often wondered why people who would make wonderful parents cannot have children and then those who don't want children (abortion) and even more so those that would abuse their children have multiple?  There is only one explanation, the presence of evil in our world.  People who allow Satan to speak lies into their hearts.  They see children as objects and not the people that they are.  Animals cannot be tempted to do wrong, only humans are susceptible to temptation.  Therefore Satan convinces adults to put their own selfish needs first.  He tells them to ignore the fact that their children were given to them as a gift from God, who entrusted those children into their care.  He has a plan for each and every one of them.  His plan does not include the abuse that they will be subjected to and yet because of the free will of their parents, those children will be subjected to the evil of the world.  Such a hard reality to explain.  Yet, God can redeem it all and I am thankful that he has for so many and in the end He will for all.

Job 19:25-"I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the end He will stand on earth."

2 Corinthians 5:10-" For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad."

My Hope

After my father went to Heaven in 2010, I bought a ring with the word "hope" engraved 1on it, because I did not want to forget that my hope is in the Lord and in the fact that He has promised me a home in Heaven and a reunion with my earthly Father one day.  I am thankful for all the reminders in scripture (here are just a few):

Psalm 33:20-We wait in hope for the Lord, he is our help and our shield.

Psalm 147:11-the Lord delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love.

Psalm 146:5-Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God.

Lamentations 3:25- The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him.

1 Peter 1:3-Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!  In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Also glad for the reminders in Song:

Thank You God that you did not leave us here hopeless, but that You are our Hope!!

He's Always Been Faithful

Sometimes you just have to post the lyrics of a song, because you don't want to forget the truths.

Morning by morning I wake up to find
The power and comfort of God's hand in mine
Season by season I watch Him, amazed
In awe of the mystery of His perfect ways
All I have need of, His hand will provide
He's always been faithful to me

I can't remember a trial or a pain
He did not recycle to bring me gain
I can't remember one single regret
In serving God only, and trusting His hand
All I have need of, His hand will provide
He's always been faithful to me

This is my anthem, this is my song
The theme of the stories I've heard for so long
God has been faithful, He will be again
His loving compassion, it knows no end
All I have need of, His hand will provide
He's always been faithful, He's always been faithful
He's always been faithful to me