God's faithfulness

Our family had a worship service together on Sunday morning.  I was asked to share about how I've experienced God's faithfulness in this past year or so of my life.  Many of you who have read this blog for sometime now, have heard these things (time and time again).  But I wanted to copy what I said here in this blog format, so my boys can one day read it.

God has been so faithful. Even now, two months into our transition, God has provided for us time and time again.  Not only financially, but physically, mentally, emotionally.  The deeper my roots go, the more and more I'm convinced that this Christian walk/journey is not really about me. I'm not central.  What does or doesn't happen to me isn't really the point.  The point is how I respond to the One who never changes. For me, the continual invitation is to stay committed to the path, despite the journey along the way.

Anyhow, this is for you, Owen and Connor, may you grow to understand the mercy and compassion of God, the One who walks with you always:

God’s faithfulness

A few days before Connor was born, a tune came into my being.  Each day when I awoke I heard this song and I knew from within that this was the song of my soon-to-be-born child.

O Connor we love you in every way

Know God loves you too and walks with you always

May love, joy, and peace surround you every day. 

Little did I know that this song would come to be a powerful reminder to me of God’s faithfulness and love, an anchor as the storms of life that would soon come.

These last 2 years have been some of the most difficult I have experienced in my life thus far.  March of 2009 was a severe low point.  With our car accident, when Connor was only 3 months old, coupled with Shawn’s mother’s diagnosis with cancer the same week, both highlighted the fragility of this life.  These experienced raised questions with me about the nature of God.  In my head I could say and reason and explain how God was good and loving and all-powerful. Going through these difficult times of darkness and death made me look again and reexamine everything. 

In regards to the accident, people would say to me, “Oh wow. God must have really been watching over you.  Praise God you weren’t hurt any worse.” 

Yes, but…but what about the woman who looked nearly dead, thrown into her backseat…or the truck driver whose truck burst into flames and was life-flighted out.  Where was God’s protection over them?   Who is this God? Can God be trusted?  Does God really care?  And then that led me down the dark path to ask the questions like Job’s friend, “What did I do?  Do I have some hidden sin in my life that is causing these things?”

And yet, underneath these questions and longings for answers…Connor’s song persisted in my conscious and sub-conscious.

And then one day it hit me, just when I needed it the most as I was singing it to him…

“Know God loves you too and walks with you always…”

As I reflected upon these events over these past months and year, I have come to a new place of understanding.  I have come to see that really life is just life.  And with life, come the good and the bad.  I’m not sure there is really much we can do to bring on the good, and avoid the difficult.  Life encompasses both fully.  However, God did promise that he would always walk with us.  This is most fully seen in Jesus, as he came as Emmanuel, meaning, “God with us.”

And I did see God’s active presence in walking with us in people that supported us, encouraged us, loved us through these intense months.  Truly their arms were God’s arms holding and surrounding us.  I find it ironic that as I look back on our life and how our journey has taken us from Colorado to Indiana, we were in Indiana, surrounded by our family and closest friends at the point in our life that we needed the support the most.  I can hardly imagine going through this in a new place with people with whom we had no history with.  And so, looking at the big picture of things, God was there, God knew what we needed even before we did. 

And then I realized in a new way that the tune of Connor’s song was, “Be Still and Know that I am God.”

Be still and know that I am God. 

Be still and know that I am God.

Be still and know that I am God.

My invitation in the midst of it all was to trust.  To trust that God ultimately is in control.  That God holds it all together.  And my invitation in the midst of the storm of anxiety, is to simply be. To release the illusion that my need to control my circumstances, as it is really a form of idolatry; or in other words, by my need to worry and be anxious and controlling, I am/was playing God.  

Richard Rohrer, a well-known Franiscian priest, using Psalm 46 as a meditative prayer exercise,  

Be still and know that I am God.

Be still and know that I am.

Be still and know.

Be still. 

Be.

Looking back, God has been faithful.  Even in the storm, God surrounded me with what I needed when I needed it, even if I didn’t know it/realize it at the time, and I know that God will continue to as I go forward.  My invitation is to let God be God. And to be still and know and God holds it all together.  For always and forever. 

Thanks be to God.