The Mountain (Mom)

2-28-20010

In church this morning, I was talking to a friend about what God does for each of us when we pray for His complete presence in our lives. He was relating how he had been praying that he could love his wife with complete and total love such as he had never experienced. A week later his wife of 23 years found herself in the emergency room with a heart rate that was almost off the charts. To prevent her death they actually stopped her heart so they could regulate the rhythm back to normal. He said as he watched her heart flat line on the monitor he was filled with the overwhelming realization that he already did love her this much, he just didn’t realize it. For me, this is how the Lord has been dealing with me, not just in my love for Him but my love for my husband.
On Thursday the news was good, but in my heart I know the Lord is not done just yet. I am now on the path up my mountain, but I have not reached the top. As I have prayed to my Lord to bring me closer to Him these last couple years, I never thought that cancer was the vehicle he would chose to do the job. But I can praise him for it because I cannot imagine not experiencing His love as I have for this last week. He has shown me that Jesus is not just a comforter or a sympathizer, but He is the Almighty God, in Him I will trust. My greatest joy this week has been to sit quietly in my chair, with my little dog, and just spend time in the Word. I have been shown some of the greatest truths given to man. On Thursday, I flipped open my journal and this is the verse that I had written just a few days before, “But my eyes are fixed on you O Sovereign Lord, in you I take refuge – do not give me over to death”. Death has lost its sting but I am honest enough to know I’m not quite ready. I told someone the other day that I was scheduled to go to China again in August. The great thing is, I may make it yet. But I will go with a new set of eyes, eyes that see my Lord in a whole new realm. Colossians 2:6-7 tells me, “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in Him, rooted and built up in Him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.”
Thankful I am – for my Lord, for my husband, for my beautiful children (which includes two of the greatest sons-in-law, Mike and Jerrel) and grandchildren, for my church, and for all those who have been praying for me so faithfully. I covet your prayers still and I pray that you will continue to walk with me during this time. I may not know some of you well, but I say with all my heart, I love and cherish each and every one of you. Janice