God is faithful.
"The LORD is faithful to all his promises
and loving toward all he has made." Psalm 145:13b
A huge example of God's faithfulness in my life is my son, Andrew. Those of you reading who have children would agree that children are a gift from our FAITHFUL God.
I especially struggled with trusting in God's faithfulness two years ago when I experienced a miscarriage. Losing a child made me wonder about many things. "Will I ever be able to have children? How can any good come out of such an awful circumstance? Why did this happen?" I wanted to know answers and thought I deserved them for goodness sake!
But God doesn't always provide us with answers to all the questions we have. In fact, the only answer I continually got from Him was, "Trust in me...". I was to consider my trial "pure joy" because it was helping to develop "perseverance". These answers that I was finding in Scripture were entering into my head, but not really taking root into my heart. I found that I had head knowledge of how I was supposed to respond to this horrible circumstance, but was I truly trusting in Him? Was I truly considering it "pure joy" to endure this?
My selfish attempts to deal with the miscarriage were continuing to fail miserably. I was self-absorbed and throwing myself pity parties just about every day. I was constantly getting upset at people when they weren't being "considerate" of me when they spoke of their children in front of me! How could they? Didn't they know what I had been going through? (All of these responses I know were SO self-centered!)
God continually brought me further and further down until I was on my knees. A rock bottom for me, I had no where else, no other strength to lean on but HIS. I couldn't cope in my own strength. On my knees, I asked Him to take over...to be my strength...to show me His will for my life. I continued to struggle with the question of whether I would ever bear children but, that moment, He was so faithful to give me His strength!
Praise God that His will was to allow me to become a mother to Andrew (and now another on the way!) He is so faithful! I praise Him each day for my precious child.
But God doesn't always allow our desires to be fulfilled. The questions that were asked in yesterday's devotion (do we measure God's faithfulness in terms of whether or not he takes us out of hard circumstances? Do we see God’s faithfulness only if He removes a problem and gives us what we’ve longed for?) are thought provoking for me.
Lord, thank you for being so faithful to me! Help me to see your faithfulness in every aspect of my life. Forgive me for my unfaithful, selfish thoughts and actions.
"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows."
James 1:17
2 comments:
Thank you, Melissa, for sharing so openly. I can assure you of "the good" in that each of us will be blessed by the process of your growth and the application of your "head knowledge" to heart knowledge.
To KNOW Him is to TRUST Him.
Ps. 9:10
Melissa-
wow. You really take me back. I think the loss of a child is one of the toughest things we can ever experience in this life. We lose some children at birth, some later, after we have gotten to know them and love them dearly. It is a hard place to be and not question God. The little word/question 'why?' seems to gain a life of its own...and it is a hard one to have "good answers" to even after a long period of time has passed.
Sometimes God allows the unfathomable--or perhaps more accurately, He Always allows the unfathomable. The problem is that we think we understand God and what He is doing (when He allows what we want--when prayers are answered as we asked, things go smoothly, etc.) and then question Him when things become tough (we don't see His purpose, we are in pain, we don't see the answers to our prayers...).
We either believe that He is a faithful God or we don't.
When we miscarried Ethan seven years ago, God was faithful. We still grieve for what he possibly could have been here, and look forward to knowing him when we are in Heaven. It is weird to think about that, had Ethan lived, we probably would not have Brittanne as the integral part of our family that she is.
God is good. He is faithful. It is a comfort that, as great as we think our ideas and plans are, that His plans for us are the Best Possible and are Perfect.
Post a Comment