Doing the Unthinkable

To love means loving the unlovable.

To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable.

Faith means believing the unbelievable.

Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless.

- G. K. Chesterton

The God Who Rules ALL Things Well

I'm so glad God sends me tokens of His love.

Sometimes it's just peace, complete peace, when a situation is rearing it's ugly head and threatening to destroy what I love most.

John Wesley said it well when he said, "I see God as sitting upon His throne, ruling all things well."

I've repeated that to myself so many times this week. And it reminds me to believe it that, YES, God IS on His throne, and He is ruling ALL things well!

Then there are other things - things that I thought would never work out so well, and they have. They remind me again, "Oh, ye of little faith! Why did you doubt?!"

Why do I not believe the Sovereign God to order all things well in my life and in the lives of those around me?

Why do I fret... worry about stuff that seems to big and awful to me, and yet seems so little and simple to God?

This is probably the five-hundredth time I've had to learn this lesson. I don't know why I forget so quickly. But I'm glad God never stops reminding me: "See, Mary? I'm God. I can take care of this."

Yes, Lord. You can do all things. I know that you can...

Because God Knew

There's nothing quite like the moments when God shows you why He did something.

I've had a lot of those moments in the past three days.

Matter of fact, in the last three days, I've welled up with gratefulness on different occasions for every single really hard thing that happened to me in the past year.

Really? All of it? Everything? Genuinely grateful?

Yes.

On Monday, I was dealing with a client and suddenly I was so grateful for what God has taught me over the past year through one of my sibling's major struggles that has affected our whole family hugely. My heart filled with compassion for this girl and the struggles she's gone through. Knowing her issues made me realize how big and scary her problems could become in pregnancy. Normally, I would be hesitant to work with a client who would be unpredictable and volatile and potentially extremely difficult to work with. But, instead... I understood. I knew what to expect. I wanted to love THIS girl and give her a chance. I thanked God that I felt compassion for her because I've watched my own sibling struggle through the same issues.

I had this strange sense of gladness that I knew and I understood and I cared deeply. I would have tried to know and understand and care in the past, but I couldn't have. Because I really didn't know. I do now. Without even thinking, I breathed a little thank you to God that I was no longer another one of those people who really didn't and couldn't understand this. I breathed a thank you that I DO understand it now.

Monday night I received a phone call from a crying mommy. As I calmly told her what to do, step-by-step, I remembered a frantic evening last winter when the same thing that had happened to her baby had happened to me. I had made some frantic middle-of-the-night calls to experts who had given me wonderful advice. I passed the advice that had worked so well for me on to the mommy and thought, "For the first time ever, I'm so glad that happened to me last winter!" I never thought I'd know why that happened. Suddenly, I imagined all of the many times I may be so grateful for that knowledge over the course of my life. And I only have it because I lived it. Thank you, God!

So, I was grateful for those things.

But something else that happened last year? I have managed to thank God for it many times because through the hurt and disappointment and bitterness of the whole situation, God plowed up the "fallow ground" of my heart and dug deep into my soul. I've thanked Him for using it in my life to make me grow; to take away the stagnant places. But, ever had a just deep grateful, from the bottom of my heart, "You knew what you were doing, God!" well up in me before? No.

Today I did. Someone I love deeply is in almost the same exact situation. Except, well a few things are different, in a not-good way. I wanted to tell those dear people what I was thinking and hope they'd listen. But I knew I would be dismissed as not understanding. Or would I?

I actually know exactly what is being felt and thought. I can speak to the heart-wrenching hurt because I lived it. I can. I can.

I can.

Because God knew what He was doing in my life last year.

My mom, the dearest person on earth to me, was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer at the beginning of April. She was given a year to live. Now, of course, only God knows our days and the time that she has. But, there are days when the possibility of her soon being gone - my mommy - forever gone from earth and my life - are just too much. It seems a little surreal.... surely that's not really going to happen... now? My mother... never see me get married? My mom never be the person I can call when I'm a mom who needs advice...? Really??

On days when I want to run away and cry instead of go to the next prenatal or just pretend it isn't true, I am stilled to remember that

God has known what He was doing every day of the good life that He has given me.

God knows what He is doing with every day of my life that stretches out into the future.

He knows!

He knows!

Faith Does Not Know Why

"Faith does not know why in terms of the immediate,

but it knows why it trusts God Who knows why in terms of the ultimate."

- Os Guiness

An Unshakable God

"Faith is not believing in my own unshakable belief.
Faith is believing an unshakable God
when everything in me trembles and quakes."
-Beth Moore

If God Should Open the Windows of Heaven

(Setting: The great Samarian famine, with Syria's army starving everyone inside the city.)
" ...Elisha said, Hear ye the word of the Lord; Thus saith the Lord, tomorrow about this time shall a measure of fine flour be sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, in the gate of Samaria. Then a lord on whose hand the king leaned answered the man of God, and said, Behold if the Lord would make windows in heaven, might this thing be?"
II Kings 7: 1-2

A few days ago I found myself sitting at my desk with a huge bill staring me in the face.
To some people it may have seemed small, but to me it was HUGE - in the tens of thousands of dollars.

It wasn't exactly all mine personally to pay, as it was the legal expenses for the cause I had been working on and directing, yet it was sort of my responsibility to find the resources to pay it, by default... because no one else was doing so.

A sickening feeling gripped me for several days as I thought of the possibilities of NOT having the money to pay the bill. I kept reminding myself, "God knows. He can pay it. It's not a big deal to Him if he wants it paid. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills." But the knot in my stomach wouldn't go away, as the visible and tangible seemed so much more real than faith that somehow, out of somewhere, thousands and thousands of dollars would appear.

I asked friends to pray about it. Most of them smiled and remarked, "That's a lot of money. Okay, I'll pray about it." But they all seemed to have forgotten within five minutes. My family was sympathetic, but again, it wasn't their burden.

It was mine. I was responsible, and in moments like these, responsibility can be a harsh master. I could think of nothing else some days (and nights). How, how, how would we come up with the money? I expected supporters to send money, but they didn't send hardly anything. I tried to have faith that money would appear, but it didn't. I told myself again and again that God is always on time, but seldom early. As the deadline was a couple of days away, I couldn't pretend it was going to be "okay", because owing a huge bill like this certainly couldn't be ignored.

I continued to pray for God's will to be done. I asked him to show Himself strong and glorify His name through providing what was needed. But at the same time, I was surrendered. Maybe He had a lesson to teach me through NOT sending the money. I had no idea what I would do if that was the case, but worrying about it wasn't helping.

The bill was due Monday morning of this week. Sunday I had much of the day to think and pray as I was driving home from a weekend event. (I had suggested to the Lord that He could provide the money there over the weekend, but I wasn't handed even an unexpected two dollars....)

As I drove, I alternated radio sermons with silence. One preacher talked about the great resources of God and how God will never budget Himself out of providing for anything that He wants done. I grabbed onto that thought. I could, I must believe that. If God wanted this done, He would pay for it. And he wouldn't cut Himself short or not come up with quite enough money.

Sunday night I was supposed to hear back from one potential donor if they had decided to donate part of the needed sum. Their answer was that they hadn't made up their mind about giving any money.

Monday morning dawned. God??

I suddenly felt strangely confident that this was God's job, not mine. It was beyond my greatest abilities to make anything happen. It was beyond me devising some great new strategy for raising the needed money. It was beyond me convincing someone to give. It was something that only God could accomplish. I knew I had been faithful in working on what I could do. All I could do was step back and wait for Him to work.

An hour passed. No word from anyone. Another hour.

I met a good friend for breakfast who asked how things were going. I told her about the bill, knowing she had no money and couldn't do anything about it. Her eyes bulged out. "You need HOW MUCH MONEY?!? I thought I had a big problem, thinking about coming up with $14,000 for nursing school by next year! And you have $75,000 to come up with really soon?! And you need $25,000 of it by noon today?!"
I nodded and smiled. She seemed to think I was crazy to be so calm about it. The need was so ridiculously huge that a smile did seem out of place.

About two hours later, I received a text message - "We have just received all of the $25,000 for today's bill, with about an extra $4000 that was just donated towards the upcoming bill."

I smiled. God HAD opened the windows of heaven. I knew He could. He had just proved Himself once again, and yes, He's always on time, but seldom early.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.