The faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven
Colossians 1:5
A relative had called, saying she had pneumonia. I offered to take her adult handicapped daughter so she could get some rest.
That was the beginning of a slow train wreck, every day bringing worse news. Tests revealed cancer, masses were found in two different areas. Two weeks later surgery revealed Stage 4 ovarian cancer. Suddenly my husband and I had two new members of our household for an indefinite period of time. Our plans for our future put aside in helping our relative deal with the change in her plans.
My faith was feeling pretty weak. The tears were just below the surface, ready to force their way to the top, revealing that my outward calm was barely a few inches deep. And when the sadness wasn’t uppermost, anger roared, over the smallest frustration in my plans.
I didn’t know how I was going to survive weeks, months, maybe years of caring for these relatives. Could I really trust God to give me the strength I needed? And from where would come the love for a mentally handicapped woman who went from moments of sweetness to moments of great ugliness and meanness? The only way I could see being able to bear years of caring for her, especially if her mother didn’t survive, was if I could find some way to love her. But that seemed impossible.
Then I realized the source is the hope stored up for me in heaven. God has promised whatever we think we have lost in this life, we will gain and more in the next. So it doesn’t matter than my plans for my life have been put aside, maybe ever forever. God has better ones waiting for me.
When I can trust God in that, then I can trust Him for the daily needs, the strength and patience I need, and even the ability to love someone who can be very unlovable.
Four weeks ago when I started writing this, I hadn’t yet even caught a glimpse of what God is going to do in this situation I call a train wreck. I asked him for a love for my handicapped relative, and He responded with a love that from time to time wells up and overflows and turns some of the worst drudgery into pure joy. How He will help me over the next weeks and months I don’t know. What I do know is that He will rescue from the wreckage and create something wonderful.
Thank you, Lord, for your answer to my prayer. Let me be a channel of your love in every circumstance, to everyone you put in my life.
God calls us to His service because He knows we love Him and are willing to obey him no matter what the assignment is. Sometime we don’t understand why but H is clear when He says “do not rely on your own understanding. When we are obedient He is glorified…and we delight in the knowledge that we have done right….
I am you husband And I am grateful God brought you into my life knowing that this challenge will be coming my way and I will need you and the wonderful woman you are to survive…