Living in Hope
Life has been a bit tough over the last month or so. Liz picked up a chest infection over Easter, and the bugs causing it have seen off the various antibiotics that have been tried, though they do seem to finally be succumbing to a new one, Levofloxacin. As a result of this, Liz has been advised to stop working. This is particularly hard t0 hear, as she was looking forward to getting back into work and had just started doing a day a week at Little Peaches, the nursery at college.
We're both quite tired and more than a little fed up with the situation, as we try to balance child care, work at college, placement requirements and both of us getting enough rest.
In all of this, we also continue to ask where God is and continue to ask for healing for Liz. There are a few things that we are working through that are coming out of this.
One is the idea from Paul's letter to the Romans which says that suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope, which will not disappoint us, because of God's love for us. The challenge here is to endure and not despair.
The idea that has helped with this comes from one of the gospel stories. I spent 3 hours on Tuesday morning in lectures on the healing miracles of Jesus. Something I was really in the mood for, with an ill wife at home :-0 Anyway, we were talking about a story related by Mark about a healing. In this story, the first thing that Jesus says to the person is, "Your sins are forgiven", and only later, "Be healed". One of my fellow student asked what the person's reaction might have been when Jesus forgave. Was it, "Oh great, now what about the legs?"
Are we so hung up on seeing the physical healing that we forget the fantastic news that we are forgiven? The thing that will secure our eternal perfection of life, to the extent that the sufferings of this life are not even worth considering, is already complete in Jesus, and this is the certain hope that can defeat our despair.
I do believe that God heals physical things. I know that God has already healed the relationship between us and God, and that we can trust God for that. In the meantime, I don't really know why Liz is still ill, but we will persevere in prayer, and live in hope.
Today I choose to follow You
Today I choose to give my "yes" to You
Today I choose to hear your voice and live
Today I choose to follow You
As for me and my house
We will serve You
As for me and my house
We will spend our lives on You
Brian Doerksen & Sandra Gage
We're both quite tired and more than a little fed up with the situation, as we try to balance child care, work at college, placement requirements and both of us getting enough rest.
In all of this, we also continue to ask where God is and continue to ask for healing for Liz. There are a few things that we are working through that are coming out of this.
One is the idea from Paul's letter to the Romans which says that suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope, which will not disappoint us, because of God's love for us. The challenge here is to endure and not despair.
The idea that has helped with this comes from one of the gospel stories. I spent 3 hours on Tuesday morning in lectures on the healing miracles of Jesus. Something I was really in the mood for, with an ill wife at home :-0 Anyway, we were talking about a story related by Mark about a healing. In this story, the first thing that Jesus says to the person is, "Your sins are forgiven", and only later, "Be healed". One of my fellow student asked what the person's reaction might have been when Jesus forgave. Was it, "Oh great, now what about the legs?"
Are we so hung up on seeing the physical healing that we forget the fantastic news that we are forgiven? The thing that will secure our eternal perfection of life, to the extent that the sufferings of this life are not even worth considering, is already complete in Jesus, and this is the certain hope that can defeat our despair.
I do believe that God heals physical things. I know that God has already healed the relationship between us and God, and that we can trust God for that. In the meantime, I don't really know why Liz is still ill, but we will persevere in prayer, and live in hope.
Today I choose to follow You
Today I choose to give my "yes" to You
Today I choose to hear your voice and live
Today I choose to follow You
As for me and my house
We will serve You
As for me and my house
We will spend our lives on You
Brian Doerksen & Sandra Gage
posted by Carter Clan at 5:22 pm
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