Fully Dependent

This week has been one of the toughest both physically and emotionally as well as one of the most peaceful and blessed. Let me explain...Being sick the past few days has enabled me to do a lot of praying, meditating, thinking and well realizing; what have I realized, yet again...the fact of how dependent upon my God I truly am for EVERYTHING. As simple and maybe foolish it may sound, I have realized that a lesson even in my moment of weakness being sick is the fact that it is by His grace that I even can have the strength to get up in the morning. It's funny to me that I forget these simple truths so often and take so many of the simple blessings in life for granted, that I have to be thrown on my back or have a moment of suffering in order to realize my utter dependency upon my Jesus. As much as I hate being in a place of weakness, sickness, trial or suffering, I have come to realize that it is in these moments in my life that I find true joy because I can experience the love of Jesus in a more acute way than in any other time in my life.

During the past week there have been a few verses that have pulled me through:

1 Peter 5:7 "Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you."

and

2 Corinthians 3:17-18 "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect[a] the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit."

and

Isaiah 26:3 " You will keep in perfect peace
him whose mind is steadfast,
because he trusts in you."

All three of these promise very different things, but all three of these show the character of my God; a God who is all-powerful, a God who is faithful, a God who has planned out each moment of my life, a God who is working in the midst of ALL things, a God who is making me, His daughter more like His Son, and a God who provides a joy and a peace to me as HE enables me to trust Him. Oh the precious blood of Jesus that has enabled me to experience this fellowship with the God of the universe. It is so amazing to me that the God of the universe desires to have a relationship with me, that He would enable me to daily trust Him, and that He would choose to allow me to suffer for His sake in order to make me more like Christ. You may be thinking I am talking crazy at this point, but for those of you who have been through tough times, the fire, through suffering and pain, you relate because you know that it is in the valleys in which you experience God's love in a fresh new way.

My favorite song in all of history is a hymn written by Horatio Spafford. Horatio wrote the hymn shortly after his only son and four daughters died and all of his fortune had been ripped from his hands in a moment. In what the world looked at at as the lowest point in Horatio's life, a time of terrible suffering and pain, tragedy really, Horation saw as a triumph and a time of refining because the strength of His Father in Heaven. Before I leave you with some of the precious words penned by Horatio, remember you are FULLY DEPENDENT; may you be encouraged that wherever you are, in trial and suffering or in triumph and joy, to run to your Jesus and find joy in His salvation, find strength in His power and find peace in His perfection. May we sing as the great hymn writer did, Whatever my lot, thou has taught me to say, it is well with my soul!

"When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul."