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Every Thought Captive

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I have had the same study Bible since I was a young teen. I got it at the height of my youth group days, and even though I have other Bibles, it’s still my favorite one to pull out and read. It’s gigantic, the kind that all of the super godly girls had in high school, and it’s beat up and marked up, just the way the youth minister always said your Bible should be, if you’re serious about your faith. Sometimes I run across notes that I made in the margins when I was all of sixteen years old, and they make me laugh.

We were pretty hard core back in those days. We wanted to know God and understand His word. We wanted to really follow Him, even though we had no idea how to do that outside of going to church and not having sex. We were clueless, but we were sincere.

Just the other day, I was flipping through those well worn pages when I saw a question I had written to myself in the margin. In purple ink, carefully printed in big, bubbly high school girl lettering were these words: How’s your thought life, Mel?

I rolled my eyes.

It was so youth group culture. It was so early 90s Christian.

It was so convicting.

No doubt the term “thought life” belongs in some 4Him song someplace. I’m actually sort of embarrassed to even write it here, now that I am long past those days when we used to ask each other about our “quiet times” just to check up to make sure we were all doing one. I am far beyond the time of trying to turn Christianity into a simple formula of acting right and being good and being the poster child for Christians everywhere.  I had to come to terms with my own bent toward sin. I am prone to wander, I’m selfish and corrupt, and only God’s goodness can ever make me seem otherwise.

I sat and stared at my own words written there, now twenty-something years further into my relationship with Jesus than the girl who wrote them.  And then God’s word cut right to my soul. I followed the squiggly arrow from my nerdy question to 2 Corinthians 10:5.  And there it was, in its painstakingly highlighted glory: …we take every thought captive to obey Christ. 

When I was a sixth grader, I started having panic attacks. It was a terrible year at school, and I was a ball of anxiety. I only had maybe three or four, but they left quite an impression on me. Somehow in that year God gave me an incredible ability to control my thought processes when I started feeling a panic attack coming on. I learned how to talk myself out of having one. It was a true case of taking my thoughts captive, forcing them to go another direction that said, no I wasn’t going to die. I wasn’t having a heart attack. I wasn’t losing my ability to breathe. I was, in fact, perfectly fine. And, somehow, when I took those thoughts captive, I was fine. It’s the clearest example that God has ever given me of what it’s like to wrestle my thinking to the ground and force it to surrender.

Only a few years before I was gifted that pretty green study Bible for Christmas, God had taught me, in a powerful way, how to grapple with my own thinking and beat it down. Yet, here I was at sixteen, questioning thought patterns that dishonored God, challenging myself to take every thought captive. And, here I am again, at almost 40, certain that I have grown lazy in my thinking, allowing ungodly desires and ideas to take up residence in my own heart and mind. Like longing for approval and glory and honor. Like seeing situations through purely selfish eyes. Like being ungrateful and petty. Like feeling entitled. And much more that I would be too humiliated to even tell you about.

Our minds will destroy us if we aren’t careful. Our hearts will lead us astray every single time. But, we won’t fight against what we think is no big deal. I learned at eleven years old how to force myself to breathe when I was in a panic. But, somehow in Christianity we manage to be standing in a corner someplace gasping for air without even realizing that we need to cry out for help. If we aren’t actively working to take every thought captive, then we are surely being held as prisoners of our own lying hearts.

In Jesus, we have the power to think about what is right, noble, pure, and lovely. What are we dwelling on? What is occupying our minds? This is a call to holiness and obedience that goes far beyond what others see or will ever know. This isn’t for show. It’s for Christ. Take every thought captive.

Peaceful Living in a Loud World

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This morning we woke up to a rare, beautiful August rainstorm. Our room was unusually dark and the sounds of the shower on the roof were like a salve. Delicious was the first word that came to my mind, and I don’t know that I’ve ever been more comfortable, lying there in the grey morning with Chad’s arm wound tight around me, a gentle start to another day.

But, after a few minutes of booming thunder, Emerald began calling me from her room. I waited just a few minutes, hoping she would go back to sleep. But, as the thunder grew louder, her voice took on an edge of panic, and I quickly got up and tiptoed to her room.

She looked worried.

I held her close and after a few minutes we settled in on the couch with blankets and snacks and a movie about a mermaid to distract us from the continuous booming outside. I noticed she was getting closer and closer to me as we sat there together. Finally, she snuggled right up next to me and whispered, Mama, just don’t think about the thunder.

Somehow she felt that if she could just concentrate hard enough on what was right in front of her: a dry house, a warm blanket, a devoted mama, a sparkling mermaid, she could push down her fear of what was going on outside. Even though it sounded like her world was about to crash down on top of her, the reality was that she was completely safe, completely loved and protected, completely sheltered from the loud goings-on outside our door.

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Pretty soon the storm passed by and I felt the brown west Texas earth heave a sigh. God sent a storm just when we needed it–with the thunder came the rain. Lots of it. And, it revived a thirsty land.

We are living in such strange times. I suppose every generation has felt that way. Each wave of humanity sees change after change, and as “progress” marches on, sometimes we feel like mankind is moving backward instead of forward. I have felt that way lately. This place is loud and it is scary. Now and then it makes me feel like the whole world is going to tumble down with a big crash.

But, then I remember.

I look at what’s right in front of me, and I concentrate on how perfectly loved, perfectly protected, perfectly sheltered that I am. The world may very well wreck itself one of these days, but when I am safely sheltered in the arms of my Savior, nothing that’s going on outside of that can touch me. Even if I don’t make it through another day on this loud, rumbling planet. Still, I am okay. I will always be okay.

Maybe God is sending a storm our way. Maybe we are hearing the distant thunder that will eventually turn into a raging tempest. But, whatever happens in our lifetime, we can always cling to this truth: if God sends a storm, it will be just when we need it. With the loud, scary cracks of thunder always comes His glorious, soaking rain.

And, I’ve never seen a world more in need of a little reviving.

When storms rage in our hearts and minds, when a crash of thunder just about brings us to our knees, let’s take a little piece of advice from a four year old. Just don’t think about the thunder.

He is as near as a warm mama on a cozy couch. Lean into Him and let the storm roll on by.

He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.  He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” Mark 4:39-40

A Heavy World

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Yesterday I was in WalMart with the kids. We were looking at beach towels. Adelade wanted to buy one, but I was trying to put her off for a few weeks because I knew that I had a huge grocery list inside my purse and a budget to keep. Sawyer and Emerald were chatting about the different floaties that they want to try out this summer. Suddenly, I heard a commotion on the next aisle. Yelling.  A scuffle.

I froze, staring at Adelade wide-eyed while Sawyer and Emerald continued talking, oblivious. I was literally waiting for the gunshots to start. In those few seconds, my body was tense, poised to move into some type of retreat to get my kids away from the danger, knowing that it might be impossible.

It was probably only fifteen seconds before I realized that the sounds I heard were teenagers racing to finish some type of scavenger hunt inside WalMart. Adelade was watching me, waiting to judge whether she should be afraid by how I handled it. I laughed. Those are happy sounds, I said, and she smiled, looking relieved.

But, I didn’t stop shaking for the next fifteen minutes.

This world is a frightening place. The climate of our country feels unstable. So much misunderstanding, so much hate, so much ignorance, so much hopelessness. Hearts are heavy. Burdens are crushing.

America is sad.

We finished our shopping, and as I rounded each aisle of the store I looked into the faces of my fellow human beings. The kids happily played and made up stories and told jokes while I worked my way through my grocery list, and I noticed how often people stopped to smile a little wistfully, watching them. Several met my gaze, nodding knowingly, and I could feel the weight they carried on their shoulders, just humans in a grocery store on a Tuesday night, longing for the days when they were carefree like my little ones, oblivious to the great troubles of the world.

We stood in line for a few minutes before a man whose tattoos showed up black and meaningful against his blue WalMart shirt came and offered to let us check out at a different register. I wondered at the stories behind the harsh-looking drawings on his arms.

He was taken with Emerald. She smiled at him so big that her eyes crinkled into little slivers. He chatted with her about her day, and she told him about the floaties on aisle six, where just an hour earlier I had frozen in fear. He laughed as she waved her hands in the air while she told him all about it. When we walked away, he called her his buddy, and she never stopped smiling at him as if they were friends from way back.

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We walked out of the store into a west Texas sunset, and after I loaded all the groceries and kids into the car, I rolled down every window so we could feel the wind in our faces as we drove away. I thought about how heavy we all seem these days. About how crippling it is to live in fear. To live in sin. To live under the great, crushing burden of the pains of life in a fallen world.

Here is the truth as plain as I can say it.

This world is hopeless. It is incurably desperate. There is no man-made fix for it. For us. The burdens we carry will crush us forever. No government program, no awareness campaign, no amount of money, no amount of desire, no amount of gun control or guns in every pocket will change anything. There’s only one answer to the problem of the human heart: Jesus Christ. He is the only source of hope. He’s the only cure for the violence, for the hatred, for the dread, for the darkness. He’s the only way to know that when you’re frozen in fear in aisle six, no matter what happens, everything is going to be okay.

On the drive home, I watched in the rear-view mirror as the kids’ hair blew wildly around their freckled cheeks. They tried to sing with songs on the radio, but they could hardly get the lyrics out for giggling about the gusts of highway air in their faces. I prayed that I’ll be able to remember this little summertime moment years down the road. And I prayed that they will all learn well as they grow up in this heavy world that Jesus was right when He said that His yoke is easy and His burden is light. This world hurts. But, Jesus is relief. And, He is the answer to everything.

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Matthew 11:28

When We Pretend We’re Not Scared

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Today I sat and looked, really looked, at each of my three children’s faces. I watched the certain quirky movements of their mouths as they told me stories. I really took in the subtly different hues of their deep ocean eyes. I hugged them tight and tried to scorch the feeling into my brain–the feeling of my own precious babies in my arms. And, I wondered what this terrifying world has in store for them.

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It’s so easy sometimes to sit here in our near perfect small town, soaking up the beauty of a simple childhood. We can almost forget. We can almost deny that the world is as broken as its ever been. But, the news is always, constantly streaming into our lives from all around the world.

And, the news is bad.

I check Facebook and all of social media looks like a minefield, full of Christians fighting each other, all claiming to be the right ones. All claiming some sort of spiritual superiority, as we work to figure out what’s to be done with all of the savagery of the planet where we live. All debating issues about which we have little information or knowledge or understanding or wisdom.

We are so puffed up with our false humility. With our certainty that we know just what Christ would do and, lo and behold, He would do just what we think ought to be done. So many Christians claiming that if we are afraid we are weak. That if our hearts are stricken with terror when we face terrifying things, we are somehow denying Christ.

But, come now. We are all afraid.

And, we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses. I have no doubt at all that when I was holding my children in my arms today, Jesus understood why my heart ached with dread at the thought that they may face real terrorism in their lifetime. He felt the trembling in my spirit as I watched news accounts of bombings around the world. He, who once trembled in a garden the night before He faced the atoning for sin, feels compassion for His children when they are quaking inside.

And yet, He calls us to trust Him. So, we do. Even in our wobbly state. Because we know the only way that we can face all of the scary things in this life, the only way we can trudge through the tragedy and find the joy in the middle of the heartache, is to completely depend on our Savior and Lord to carry us through it all. We are not meant to have a spirit of fear. But, when we do, He keeps His sweet, firm grip on us and He never, ever lets go.

As for the social media war zone, it could use a little of the peace that everyone keeps preaching about.

I remember an old episode of The Twilight Zone called “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street.” Throughout the program, weird things happen in a peaceful little neighborhood. Lights go on and off by themselves. Cars won’t start and then start when no one is near them. In less than an hour, old friends begin to turn on each other, and at one point, in a panic, one neighbor shoots his friend, believing that he is some menacing figure approaching. The episode ends with a shot of two aliens sitting on a hill overlooking the neighborhood. One comments to the other that it is so easy to create just enough chaos to cause humans to turn on each other: We just let them destroy themselves.

Maybe we Christians are helping ISIS more than we know, just by allowing their actions to make us turn on one another in such wounding and prideful ways. We should be united in this: while we may have fears, we trust God wholeheartedly with our lives, our souls, our families. We admit that we are all weak. And we choose to love each other in our weakness, regardless of our political stances.

Not a single one of us is God. Or God’s gift to humanity. Or God’s gift to Facebook statuses. But, we are the light of the world. Let’s shine, however fearfully, instead of wasting our energy trying to decide which political camp is more in tune with God. May we always remember that knowing Him at all is miraculous.

When We’re Still Scared

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But, I’m scared.

We were already 20 minutes into a too-late bedtime attempt, and Emerald just couldn’t seem to get settled down. Her closet light was on, her flashlight was on, the bathroom light was on, and she was surrounded by a friendly assortment of stuffed toys and baby dolls. Her brother and sister were just next door, and her daddy and I were sitting mere feet away from her room, but she still felt uneasy about being in her bed all alone.

She told me that she’s afraid of monsters. And of someone slipping in the hallway and falling into her room. She told me that she wanted more light. She said that if her foot was outside of her blanket a monster would come. She knows there are monsters, as all children do. And, as all mothers do, I lied and said that there’s no such thing. Evil is alive and well on this planet. But, tonight, in her room, in this cozy house, on this quiet street, my God and I can hold the monsters at bay, and my baby can sleep in peace.

I told her the other truth of the matter.

I am taking care of you, and I am telling you there is no reason to be afraid tonight.

The crying continued. The insistence. But, I’m still scared!

When her daddy walked in his patient way to her room and spoke in soft tones, I sat down to write to you. I know that right now he has probably taken off his glasses and laid on the floor next to her bed, strong hand on her tiny back. A reassurance that is warm and real.

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And, as I think about the way she pulled her Elsa blanket up to her chin while she cried over her fears, I can’t help but see a picture of me. Afraid of the monsters. And, even while Jesus explains that He is taking care of me and there’s no reason to be afraid, I still hear myself answer, But, I’m scared.

How He must sigh.

He, who laid the earth’s foundation, who spoke everything into being. He who is ruling the universe as I type. How He must sigh when I wonder if He can handle all of the things that I am afraid of.

Still, He sticks close. He reassures me with His warmth. With His gentleness. With His low tones, His still small there, there. I am here. I’m taking care of you tonight and there’s nothing to be afraid of.

And, eventually, even as hard headed as I am, I close my eyes and I open the little fist where I had been holding tight to fear, and I let it go.

Emerald has finally drifted off to sleep. I hear the beautiful peace that has settled on her room. And, I feel the peace that has settled on me. He is taking care of us, and there is no reason to be afraid tonight.

When We Worry about Worrying

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Tonight when I put Emerald in bed, she said, in a convincing tone, Mama, there’s nothing to worry about, is there?

This is how her bedtime questions about animals and monsters in her room have evolved.  Now instead of asking about the specifics, she just puts on a slightly false confidence and tries to remind herself that there’s no reason to be nervous.  That her room should be a worry-free zone.  Yet, each night she seems just a little bit concerned about being left in there all alone.  I feel like she’s really saying, I am worried about so many things right now, but you’ve told me I shouldn’t be worried, so I’ll try to act like I’m okay.

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I totally get it, don’t you?  As Christians, we know that the Bible clearly tells us not to worry.  But, we look around at this scary world.  We look down at our precious children.  We look across the table at a struggling spouse.  We drive across town to care for aging parents.  It seems like there are so many things to fret over.  It’s so hard to tell ourselves, There are TONS of things to worry about, but I shouldn’t worry about those things because I’m a Christian.

Then we feel guilty when we do worry, even though we tried not to.

I just want to say this to all of us right now:  Whoa.  Breathe.

I don’t believe that worry is always about not trusting God enough.  I believe we can completely trust God to handle a situation or to just generally guide our lives, while still hoping that there are certain things we won’t have to endure. Jesus prayed in the garden before His crucifixion.  He wasn’t trying to usurp God’s control of the situation, but He was definitely not looking forward to enduring what He would soon face.

So, don’t worry about worrying.  Believe God’s promises, trust in His goodness, pray against what you fear, and know that if the worst of your fears comes true, God will somehow, someway bring you through it.  Cling to the One who already knows how your story turns out.

He is trustworthy.

The Truth is Still True

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Originally posted July 2014.

Tonight this world is spinning along its usual path in a universe so gigantic that we can’t even really conceive of its magnificence. Earth is just one small dot on a grid of millions of heavenly bodies of different kinds. Yet, here we are, special creation, made in the image of God, bent under the weight of incredible sin, grieving over wars that are raging as I write, powerless to control what cannot be controlled. Worried. Terrified. Wondering how it all turns out okay in the end.

And, where is God?

We wonder what He is doing. We question whether He is good. The bad news just keeps coming. And it seems like there’s a hole in our faith bucket. We read the stories that seem to point to the end of the world as we know it, and we tremble inside. We wish that we could see what God’s ultimate plan is. We wish that we could understand what is really happening when it looks like everything is chaos and craziness.

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But, we don’t have to know every aspect of God’s plans or His will or His interesting way of accomplishing things.  We don’t even have to like what we see Him doing.  We don’t have to approve of His methods or be happy about every twist and turn that He has built into our road ahead.

But, even when we are heartbroken, when we are discouraged to the point of despair, when we are crippled by the fear of what is to come, when we are angry at God, when we feel abandoned, when we feel anxiety coming over us in waves, when we don’t even know who we are anymore, the Truth is still true.

Our feelings about the Truth don’t change it.  They don’t weaken its power.  They don’t deny us access to it.  The Truth is always completely real, even when we are feeling around in the pitch black of our own fear just trying to lay hold of one tiny corner of it.  It is there.

The Truth is that everything is going to be okay.

If we are in Christ and He is in us, if God has us held tight in His hand, nothing can snatch us out of it, not even our fear. So, in the light of Truth we can imagine our worst fears, things we are too afraid to even give words to, images and terrors that reside in our minds that seek us out as we lie in bed at night.  Fears borne in irrational thinking or fears based on what we have already experienced–it doesn’t matter.  We can imagine that our very worst fear comes true, and we can face it because we have the hope of Jesus Christ.

A friend revealed that she had a crippling fear that someone would break into her house and murder her family.  The Truth came back to her in the echos of Scripture she had memorized as a child:  The Lord is good and His word endures forever. . .Trust in the Lord with all your heart and don’t lean on your own understanding. . .Fear not, for I am with you. . .I sought the Lord and He answered me and delivered me from my fears. . .If we are faithless, He remains faithful.  She agonized over this fear for quite some time before she finally embraced the Truth that even if her very worst fear came true, everything would still be okay.

Because God is in the business of making things right.  He is good and trustworthy, and His Truth remains, even when we are having a hard time remembering it.

Maybe you have already faced your worst fears.  Maybe you are angry with God.  Maybe you are so heartsick that you don’t believe you will ever recover.  And maybe you won’t, in this life.  But, God is working.  Please believe it.  His Truth stands, despite our circumstances.  We can trust Him.  And, at the end of it all, which is really only the beginning, everything really will be okay, if we know Him.  Rest in His hand, my sweet, tired friends.  He is good.

Loose Tooth Lessons

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Today Adelade and I got to go on a fun adventure.  Chad had an all-day meeting right near the Capitol in Austin, and she and I tagged along to spend some time touring the downtown area.  It was a rare opportunity for Adelade and I to get to spend some time together without the two younger kids, and we were so excited.

Early on in the trip I noticed that she was acting a little strange.  Her mouth was clamped shut.  She had slightly flushed cheeks.  She was unusually quiet and seemed worried about something.  I wondered if she wasn’t feeling well, but I didn’t say anything because I don’t like to encourage hypochondria in already dramatically-inclined children.  So, I chatted on as if she were acting normal, and prayed that she wasn’t getting sick.

We stopped to eat at her favorite restaurant, and I went on and on about how wonderful it was, eating in her favorite place where we never get to eat, and she kept nodding and smiling, obviously wanting me to feel like she was appreciating the greatness of this moment.  When her food arrived we started eating, and after about five bites, she suddenly sat up straight, clanged her fork down on the table, and blurted out, “I have a loose tooth!  It’s really loose!  I can’t even eat it’s so loose!”  And she finally smiled, for real, and I laughed because I realized that this was what her several hours of weirdness had really been about.

She had spent valuable little-kid-free time fretting over her loose tooth, knowing she should ask her daddy to pull it, but really just too afraid to ask because she hates getting teeth pulled.  But, never one to miss a tooth-pulling opportunity, Chad took her to some unknown area of the restaurant (my apologies, fellow diners) and he pulled her tooth.

She came back to the table all smiles.  She still didn’t eat her food, but her entire countenance changed once she had finally let her dad deal with her issue.

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As we got back in the car and continued our trek to Austin, I thought about how often I go on and on worrying about something before I finally take it to God and let Him handle it.  I wonder how many otherwise amazingly awesome days I’ve wasted fretting over what God could take care of in five minutes.

Yep, Adelade comes by it honest.

She left her tooth under her pillow in the hotel room, but the Tooth Fairy couldn’t find us in Austin (ahem, the Tooth Fairy gets a little forgetful), so we’ll try again now that we’re back in our usual spot.

I had such a fun time with my growing-up girl.  She just keeps gaining inches.  She just keeps losing teeth.  She just keeps teaching me lessons.

When All You Can Do Is Trust God

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Her eyes were already puffy and red, but the tears just kept streaming down her face.  I could tell that she was trying to contain the panic;  fear was so close to the surface, and the worry poured out her heart in tiny salty droplets on her eyelashes and freckled cheeks.

She begged me not to leave.

I held her and patted her back like I was beating a drum worn smooth.  The wet spot on my shirt grew as the tears continued to flow.  Trust God.  Trust God, I whispered to her soul and mine.  I could feel the slight nod of her head, buried in my side.  Little ostrich, hiding from the truth of the goodbye.

She made a magazine for me to read on the airplane.  It is filled with horse drawings and jokes and funny stories.  I stapled it together for her and held it to my chest in a gesture of enthusiasm.  She smiled, and then she cried.

And I held her close enough to feel the weight of her worry.

She is so much like me.  I know that weight.  We all have crosses.  Tonight hers was a goodbye in a doorway, light and life in our cozy home versus the dark unknown of a world where her mama ventured.

I hear that by the time she carried that weight to bed, she was smiling again.  I hope my words were ringing true in her heart as she laid her head on her very cozy, very familiar lady bug pillow:  Trust God.  Trust God.

Worship in the Dark Hours

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Today I spent time in the surgical recovery area of a hospital.  My husband had to undergo surgery, and I had the extremely unpleasant job of watching him wake up from anesthesia in horrific pain, out of his mind from the medicine, and basically in the worst state that I have seen him in 19 years of knowing the man.  Not only that, but all around us were the sounds of agony, punctuated by the sobbing of a woman to our left and the dry heaving of a man in another part of recovery.  It was frightening and miserable, and I’m so very glad that it’s over.

As Chad lay there in excruciating pain, in a condition that would probably cause many to yell or cuss or ask why me?,  Chad quietly prayed, crying out to Jesus, IV-ed arms lifted in a posture of worship.  He seemed completely unaware that I was there, witnessing his great display of humility, watching the man that I love more than life cry out to the God that I love more than life.

When I brought him home hours later, I couldn’t get that image out of my mind:  strong man, brought to his knees by life, glorifying God as his only source of help and hope.  It stays with me still, the sounds of his whispered prayers in the middle of a miserable place, Jesus invited into a dark hour.

sparkler2Then this afternoon the news broke that there is a case of Ebola in the US.  In Dallas, no less, right here in our own state.  And, the fear started coursing across the internet.  The chatter about the scary possibilities.  And I’m certainly no braver than the next girl.  I want to put my little family in a protective bubble and shoo away all of the bad and the scary in the world.  I want to steer us toward the sunshiny spots of life and avoid all of those dark hours that lie ahead.

But, I can’t do that.  I couldn’t even do that today for Chad as he lay writhing in pain on a cold hospital bed.  Yet, today when I watched this man that I know so well reverting to a default posture of prayer and humility when he could’ve yelled or sobbed or refused to acknowledge a God who had let him land in this spot, I realized something.  I may not be able to avoid the dark hours.  But, I can invite Jesus into them.  I can acknowledge His presence and His care.  I can trust His power and believe in His goodness, even when good seems such a long way off.

Because when we bring Jesus into the dark, He shines.  He carries.  He always loves our worship, but worship in the dark must be especially beautiful to a God in whom there is no darkness.   When we are at our weakest, when worship is whispered into the sterile air of a hospital room, when worship is honest and pure and borne of a desperation that only humanity can truly know and experience, when worship is all we have in this world to offer Him, it must sound so sweet to the holy ear of the Sovereign God.

So, when the threats arise, when the fear bubbles up inside, when the pain is too great, when all we have left is to raise weak hands in worship and cry out to the God of the universe, He is near.  And, we can trust His power to make all things right in the end, even when things seem all wrong in the dark hours.

I’ll not soon forget the sight of my best friend, my pastor, praising God through the pain.  God showed Himself today.  And, He reminded me that when the dark encroaches on the sunshiny parts of life, the best response is always humility, worship, and trust.

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