FOR US

This morning, me and my terribly sore throat and totally stopped up nose, turned on the TV and found Beth Moore on Life Today. I haven't been turning on the TV in the morning and when I saw she was on I figured it wasn't a coincidence.

This is a quote from Beth's lesson today:

"The things God allows us to go through are for our giftedness. Not for our harm."

Four years and nine months ago, someone spoke basically the same words to me. Or should I say she spoke them over me. I say over me because those words have become a blessing, a charge, an anointing. God has used them over the years as an answer to many of my "whys?".

She spoke these words to me at a time when things were so bad in our family that I can't even talk about them. Ethan was still in a coma and we were taking care of him at home. And when I thought that things couldn't get any worse...when I thought I could bear no more...there was more.

This person, with a tear-choked voice, told me that when she was praying for me... and in the pain she was feeling for me, she asked God "why" He was doing this to me. He replied, "I'm not doing this to her. I am doing it for her."

"For our giftedness. Not for our harm."

God's timing is perfect. Perfect to speak words exactly when we need to hear them. At a time when we have a choice to make. A choice to believe. A choice to go forward. Or to give up and quit. A time like this morning.

Like I've said before, sometimes we find not one huge mountain standing in front of us but a whole mountain chain. Many times my cry has been, "Lord, could we handle just one thing at a time? Could we climb one mountain at a time? This is too much." But, life's not like that. The mountains seem to go on and on and on. Multiplying mountains.

And, God reminded me today, through Beth Moore and the words that were spoken over me years ago, that it's all for me. It is for my purpose. And if I believe Him...that it's for my giftedness... it will be for the difference that my life...my plain old-ordinary-messed up-redeemed life can make in the lives of the people I love. And, for the difference that my life can make in this time and place where He has placed me.

But, I have to make that choice.

To resent it all...or, in faith, to give thanks for it.

To hate it all...or embrace the opportunity for God's grace.

To fight it with everything in me...or to receive it in humility and trust.

To blame others...or to believe that in every circumstance of my
life, God has the final say.

To lay down in front of the mountains and say I can't and I won't..
to throw a hissy-fit....
or to take that first step in faith and to let Him give me the
strength to continue and when I can't...
to let Him carry me.

"For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal." 2 Corinthians 4:17

Did you see that?

Our affliction is working for us.

Amazing.