Waiting....Be Still and Know That I Am God

Life is so fragile. I have found myself thinking about this quite often in the past few weeks. Mostly because my husband's father was diagnosed last fall with cancer. He was reportedly in remission but last week had a very scary week. We were on stand-by, if you will, to make that one last trip...the one that you dread but hope that if you have to make it, that you will make it in time. I am happy to say that God seems to have performed another miracle in this man's life. And now I am looking at what will happen next. You see, God has used close calls in the health of my father-in-law to teach me very important things about Himself.

The first time was in 1987. My father-in-law had a sudden attack of pancreatitis. I did not know at the time what that was, but I did know it made him very sick. Instead of getting better, he got worse and developed peritonitis, a condition that fills the abdomen with infected fluid. After two months in the hospital with little improvement, the doctors sentenced Bob, my father-in-law, to death. At this time, I did not believe in Jesus Christ. In fact, I was a pretty strong atheist. But, I watched this family, now my family through marriage, seek this God that they claimed could perform miracles and they asked for one. Their God answered that request. Bob began to improve and eventually was discharged from the hospital and went on to recover beautifully. From everything that I witnessed, it was a miracle.

I accepted Jesus Christ that year.

Several years later, my husband and our family had been living in Virginia for going on ten years when Bob got sick again. All of my family, and my husband's, live in Oklahoma. So, for my husband or myself to be available during these times of possible family crisis, it seemed near impossible. I was not comfortable with this, but resigned to the restrictions we had living so far away from our family. A few weeks after his second brush with death, I was on a business trip with my very good friend, riding on a bus to go to a conference, telling her about the condition of my father-in-law. In that conversation, I expressed that I was starting to feel like it was time to go "home". She agreed to pray with me about this because she knew it was heavy on my heart. God was the Great Physician - again - and Bob recovered when the doctor's thought it would be the beginning of the end.

The next thing that happened was my husband was layed off and a year and a half later, accepted a job just five hours away from our family home.

Six weeks after we moved, my mother and her husband were in the motorcycle accident that changed our lives as we knew it. I am so glad that I was here, close enough to be "home" in a few hours, close enough to stay with my mom for nearly two months while she convalesced, close enough to say good-bye to my step father of twenty two years when he passed away a few days after the accident. And it was no accident that our family was close by. God knew way ahead of time. He had everything under control and set things up just how they needed to be.

So now I wait. I expect that God has something coming but I don't know what. I have learned how to recognize His work in my life. I also have learned some of the patterns of the ways that He gets my attention. This is one of those times, I feel it. I sense it. And even though I am a little nervous, He always knows what's best and what is right. I am keeping my eyes on Him and waiting.

I pray that my husband's father will experience another miracle. His condition has improved the last two days.

And I pray that I am walking close enough to my loving Father, my gracious God, and my Savior to be ready for the next lesson that He has for me.

Be still, and know that I am God.
Psalm 46:10