author, mentor
I’ve been working too hard, and have gone over the edge. Have you ever done that?
The sun was already setting. I had to get outside. And it was as if God was there. The sun spread out its arms, soothing me. I followed it until it set.
Maybe I’ll start chasing sunsets every day. God is bigger than work.
The facts of 2015 could stare us in the 
face. Broken dreams. Smashed hopes. Where was God? He could have changed those facts, he could have made things better… He didn’t. He had a deeper agenda. Faith. Can I trust him in 2016, even when hope seems futile? Can I believe him that my broken dreams are only the beginning, the seeds of an adventure with God?
It was c
old. Oak leaves lay frozen in a puddle, unable to escape. I stopped and grieved. That was exactly how I felt about something precious to me. It too had been captured.
Then a thought came. “Look up!” An oak tree overshadowed me. Another thought. “Don’t be sad. That oak tree will produce many more leaves! So can you!” Isaiah 61:3 says, “… provide for those who grieve in Zion… They will be called oaks of righteousness… for the display of his splendor.”
These past few months I have been writing the final draft of my memoir. The publisher likes it, but I have run into an external block. Could that be enough to stop my book?
Fear, hurt, and tears set in. How could this be happening? I ran to God in agony. But God didn’t fall into a panic with me. He threw his arms around me instead. He said, “Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, then you will be successful wherever you go…” (Joshua 1:7)
I can choose what to do in opposition… panic or trust. Dear God, help me trust.
Ten years ago I put a verse on the kitchen cupboard. “Be strong and courageous.” (Joshua 1:6) Every time I felt scared I ran to that verse, sometimes a dozen times a day. In my heart I reached up to God, and he gave me th
e strength to keep going.
That verse fell off three weeks ago. I put it up. It fell off again. I thought that God might want me to live a deeper faith, not through a verse, but directly with him. I struggled to hang on.
Yesterday a lady stopped me. “I have something for you,” she said. She showed me some words she had written in a notebook. “Don’t fear, have faith. It is I who lead the way.” I wrote those words down, put them up on the kitchen cupboard. Thank you, God.
Just yesterday I received bad news. It so crushed me, I slumped to the floor in tears. It felt as if a hand had slid inside my chest, squeezing life from my heart. “Don’t you have any words of encouragement for me?” I asked my husband.
“I don’t know what to say. But, I can read the Bible to you.”
He opened to 2 Corinthians 4. “…The One who raised up the Master Jesus will just as certainly
raise us up with you, alive.” (verse 14, The Message)
If God could give Jesus breath again, he can make us live again. Of all the things I have learned about suffering, this one is the simplest – if I am still breathing, I LIVE… And if that is true, there is hope.