Thursday, March 13, 2008

If You're Not Dead...You'll Live

We’ve all heard the quote, “that which does not kill you will only make you stronger.” However, I add, “that which does not kill you will only make you stronger” if you lean on and gain strength from Him who is Strength…Our God. God promises that he walks with us through the valleys of life. His promise to us is that we will make it and we aren’t left to struggle through it alone.

My co-worker told me recently about their asphalt driveway. She had started up the drive to home and saw something pink poking it’s head up through the asphalt. She didn’t stop then but the next morning the pink blob was much larger and she just had to stop to see what it was. Lo and behold, the pink blob was a mushroom that had grown up through 4” thick hard as concrete asphalt. Think of the strength that fragile mushroom had to exert to work its way through that asphalt. Sometimes our life seems so fragile that we’d break down at the drop of a pin but that’s when we should stop and think about the mushroom. It kept pushing until it broke through that black barrier and into the light. We need to do the same until we push through into the Light of Him who loves us more than we can even imagine.

1985 was my year to be in the black hole. I had gallbladder surgery, experienced the death of my husband and the father of our two young teenage daughters, had a hysterectomy due to massive tumors with the possibility of malignancy, and the open-heart surgery and subsequent stroke of my dad. I was thrown head-first into a deep dark pit. I am living proof that He does bring us through the valley and besides that He uses those valleys to draw us to Himself and mold us to be more and more like Him. I can honestly say that now, I am so grateful for the valleys of my life. If it weren’t for those valleys, I wouldn’t have the sweet intimate relationship with my Heavenly Father that I have. I would have gone on living life in the middle and never getting to the edge of the cliff. My faith would have been the faith of a marginal Christian. Instead, today, my faith in Him is so powerful that I know that I know that I know that He is in control and will take care of me no matter what storms I may experience. Since we live in a fallen world, the storms will come. We can blame Adam and Eve for them…not God. He is the Almighty who walks us through. He is Jehovah-Rapha, our Healer; Jehovah-Jireh, Our Provider; Jehovah-Shalom, Our Peace; El-Shaddai, Our God Who is Sufficient for the Needs of His People.
Take heart, friend, until the day of ultimate healing when we all gather in praise to Him around the throne.

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