I am tired. It’s been a very long day. A lot happened. I just hung up from a two-hour and thirty-three-minute phone call with my dear friend and brother in the Lord, Minister Joe Brown. He has been at death’s door so many times this year (not counting the numerous years he’s been at death’s door, nor the time he actually died in church and the Lord God brought him back decades ago).
He testified during those two hours about the goodness of God and what He’d seen the Lord do during his major illnesses, hospital stays, nursing home stays, return home for two days, only to have to repeat the process. But as I listened, I rejoiced with him as he rejoiced over being in God’s loving arms through it all.
He said there were times when all he could do was cry out – a grown man, lying in a stark hospital room all alone, unable to take care of himself. He couldn’t find a place of comfort when he turned his bruised, thin frame of a body racked with pain by the several emergency life-saving surgeries done back-to-back. He didn’t have the luxury of time to heal from one before being thrown into the next saga of pain. He cried out. He asked God why. He asked God when would He come by. Yet, through it all, he said repeatedly how grateful He was to know that the Lord carried him through those dark hours.
Suffering is never a subject we want to see play out in our lives. It raises its ugly head, attacking our lives often without warning or our permission. My brother’s suffering journey this time around began in January of this year and continues. Yet, he talked about how the Lord answered prayer today – sending help through an unlikely source. He was grateful that God answered that prayer request before the day was out.
Minister Brown has been through so much, but as he shared some of the miracles God performed – including the one done today – I felt compelled to remind you that God sees, hears, understands, and is working through your season of suffering! He didn’t forget, get lost, ignore, or hang up on your cries.
Then my mind fell on an older couple I saw today walking through the neighborhood and holding hands. I’d seen them before on my security cameras, and every time I saw them, they were always holding hands. I spoke to them today and thanked them for doing so, as it warmed my heart to see them stroll through the neighborhood that way. They thanked me for sharing my observation. Then the husband shared his testimony.
He said he was just glad to be alive. He said they’d been married twenty years, but at the beginning of the year he nearly died from sepsis. Once he recovered from that, he had a heart attack. So, for them, walking hand in hand was an extra special gift of appreciation for life! I thanked them for their testimony, and they continued walking hand in hand.
I don’t know what you’re facing, but I do know the same God who kept Minister Brown, the neighbor, and the rest of us (as we are all being kept through our seasons of suffering) is also the same God who has you in His hands.
The Lord is well aware of your cries, pain, questions, uncertainties, fears, and the like. He is good enough and God enough to walk with you in the spaces that you are forced to walk in and through. While the sufferings are intense and leave us waiting for God to do “something,” He still hears, sees, understands, and, in His time and in His own way, will come and see about His children.
The righteous cry, and the Lord heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles. Psalm 34:17 (KJV)
And the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; Exodus 3:7 (KJV)
Now there cried a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets unto Elisha, saying, Thy servant my husband is dead; and thou knowest that thy servant did fear the Lord: and the creditor is come to take unto him my two sons to be bondmen. 2 Kings 4:1 (KJV)
In the Master’s Service,
Author/Pastor Michele D Robertson
28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. Matthew 11:28-29 (KJV)