Revelations of God's Faithfulness

The following is a writing I did at a particularly difficult time in my life several years ago. I remember feeling so overwhelmed by what God showed me that day...

Cold and yet pleasantly crisp, the air surrounds my being as I stroll in deep concentration. The day is nearing the noon hour and already a million concerns have crossed my troubled mind. Longing to do better, to be better, I question my current course, wondering will the path veer toward sunnier ventures. I am not discouraged. I am not ill content…just wishing I’d made a few different choices through the past years…wanting desperately to end up where God initially directed my path before I chose another one, the wrong one. Why can’t I listen, or rather couldn’t I? Now all I do is listen, hoping He will be gracious in our plight. I am for the most part, really happy, content, and settled. But not knowing what tomorrow holds is as disturbing as it is exhilarating. I know my calling, His commission for me, for us, and yet, the enemy battles ferociously to bring it all to a halt. Whether a mood of sour grapes or such an attack of illness, at times I literally scream, “Enough! Back Off! Could You just give me a break?!” So, He does…graciously. Although when I reach that point, I imagine Him in all His fatherly wisdom softly smiling, looking down and shaking His head slowly and thinking, “We’ll try it again tomorrow.” I just want to cry, because yet again, I just didn’t get it. He was trying to teach me, trying to mold me and I gave up. I failed and yet still He loves me more than I deserve. He has sent encouragement thru the most surprising sources. People I didn’t think even contemplated my existence have come out of left field to speak powerfully into my life, to reassure me of His promises, and to implore my acceptance of them. I did accept them. I make a public confession of that acceptance, and then those dark, ominous clouds begin to creep across the azure expanse, large and foreboding. They crawl slowly, as if to taunt me, “What promises has He ever kept?” My reply? “Oh! I don’t know…ALL OF THEM!” So, in light of my sarcasm, the enemy mounts forces to defeat me by attacking that which is most precious to me in all the earth, save God…my family…unexplained exhaustion, illness, fear, literal fire from hell, confusion, heartache, irritation, aches and pains, tears, listlessness, financial grief. Just the mere revelation of all the enemy is attempting raises within me a spiritual indignation that wishes to plant the heal of my boot firmly in the temple of his evil being. I know he will not win, so I remind him of his final plight…eternal damnation. He smirks and yet I feel stronger and imagine him staggering a bit. Then deep inside me whispers a chorus that reminds me of God’s great power:
You made it all, said let there be
And there was all that we see.
The sound of Your voice,
The works of Your hands,
You do all things well!
That song grows in strength until it thunders across my heart and tumbles across my lips with such conviction that I am certain Heaven is cheering and Hell is trembling. God doesn’t do some things well, or even a lot of things well, but ALL things well. I am his masterpiece. Now I am reminded of God’s prophecy two weeks prior to our wedding day…”The man you are about to marry is as surely the man I have chosen for you as if I had reached into a field of wild flowers and picked just one.” I’m not off course in that sense. I suppose I was somewhat restored to my original path. Life is good. He still has a great work to do within me, but I have much for which to be thankful. He is polishing me, and He will keep true to that which He has promised. We will be used, and He will continue to work through us. His ministry will rise and come forth.
Now, the sun erupts from behind those dark clouds as if to say, “His light permeates even the darkest of life’s sorrows”, but, just as quickly, that glorious orb ducks behind another billowing grey cloud. From this I hear within my soul, “Even when the dark clouds overshadow your life, THE SUN IS STILL THERE!” The clouds will come and go, but the son, S-O-N, will never leave. He will always be there to guide, to comfort, and to strengthen. That’s just so powerful to me. I cannot operate out of a discouraged heart, or a sorrowful spirit, but rather I must operate with the assurance that I am His and He is mine and from that, gather the confidence to endure all things through Him who provides my strength. I have no fantastic circumstance that is any greater than the next wife, or mother, or daughter. We all endure many wonderful AND terrible things. It is just that if I as an honorable Christian woman acknowledge the promises of God and have faith within those promises, I have a divine advantage in this never-ending race toward my enlightenment, toward my blessed eternity, and toward the privilege of worshiping at the feet of my Lord and Savior. Now, from that revelation these songs can rise from the deepest recesses of my heart and across my lips to declare:

Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine!
Oh! What a foretaste of glory divine!

As well as,

I love you! I love you!! I love you!
And my heart will follow wholly after you!

And at long last,

I sing because I’m happy!
I sing because I’m free!
His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know He watches over me!