God is so good and faithful to me. Even though He gave me a hard trial, He has been with me every step of the way. When I am discouraged, and waves of fear wash over me, He stands ready to encourage me through His Word.
When you find out you have something like cancer, you experience many emotions. You feel like your body has betrayed you and are afraid to trust it now. You wonder what the Lord is doing, and what the outcome will be. You wonder if you will be able to withstand the chemotherapy, or whatever other treatment the doctors decide on. You dread going to each - never ending - test or biopsy because you fear hearing more bad news. Discouragement comes without you even being aware of it and hangs like a dark cloud over everything, making it hard to take God's hand and let Him pull you up out of it. But, that is what He does each time I have remembered to look up!! He is faithful even when we aren't. He is ever waiting for me to come to Him so He can bless me and increase my faith. He gives me His strength and peace, when I have had none.
My thoughts go again to the soldier. What thoughts wrestle inside His mind, what emotions stir and trouble his heart? What comfort does he find in the dark and quiet as he lies waiting for sleep to come?
What if the enemy takes his life? Who would take care of his family at home, his children, his wife, his parents? Did he risk too much when he took the brave challenge to enter the battle? Will God protect him, or will he possibly be injured or handicapped in the war? Would he be able to deal with a lifelong handicap? To what island in this sea of trouble and fear does his heart find to shelter on?
My heart goes out to the poor soldier who does not know the Lord, the refuge of our souls. For the ones who know God, we can take so much from David, who knew and wrote of such emotional troubles. If anyone knew what it meant to be hunted for years by the enemy, stuck in the wilderness, away from all the comforts of his life and his calling, it was David. I have been able to say with him,
"Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God." Ps. 42.
Again, in Ps. 9 "Those who know your name will trust in you, for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you."
Also, "I am still confident of this; I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord."
"Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff they comfort me." Ps. 23.
God has taught me so much through the emotional roller coaster of this trial - how to hold His hand through fear, how to esteem His word to me over all else, how to wait, say to my soul to look to Him, and to trust. Plain and simple words, but so hard for us - trust. God is good!!
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