God and I had a hard talk today. Driving home on Highway 43, I railed and prayed and wept for my dear friends and their newly arisen hardships. What a cross is cancer.
I alternated between asking for mercy and a miracle, and voicing demands to know why and how.
Then came a truth that got me through oh so many dark days in the last few years. It cut across my thoughts in a clear voice.
“The Lord God stands in your future.”
My mind quieted and I repeated that truth to myself.
It is not why and how that can bring peace. It is only the truth that God stands in my future; that He stands in my friends’ futures. The Holy Spirit led my thoughts from there.
God stands in all of it – in every period of our lives. Each stretch of the road is a piece of the journey that can lead to Him. To Heaven and our fullness of life for eternity. Only He sees from beginning to end, and where this present piece fits into the whole.
Because of who He is, we can trust Him with the whole thing. Past, present, future can be entrusted to His hands. He, in turn, entrusts a piece back to us. He holds that piece with us. That piece is now. It is the most present part of the present stage of our lives. It is today.
“I give you today. I ask you to bear it, yes, but it only. I give you the joys and sorrows, the tasks and fruits of today. And just as I have not yet given you the time of tomorrow, I have not given you the work of tomorrow. Those worries, wants, and crosses are still in my hands. I stand in your future, a beacon and a fortress. I hold your future. I hold it lovingly in the palm of my hand. There is a refuge there in my hands, even now.”
The Lord God stands in my future. I declare it. I claim it for them and for myself.
“Thou holdest my lot.” (Psalm 16:5b)
“The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.” (Psalm 18:2)
“In Him my heart trusts.” (Psalm 28:7b)
Please pray for the Tim and Erin Viau family as they undertake this battle with Tim’s glioblastoma.
Carrie In Writing 