encouraged by a question...

Several years ago, I was very encouraged by a question I heard Pastor Andy Stanley ask,

"What would a girl, just like you, do, in a situation just like the one you are in, if she was absolutely certain that God was with her?"  

That question helps me focus on Jesus, and the Truth that I know and believe…His name is Emmanuel, God with us, He will never leave us or forsake us. Hebrews 13:5b Amplified translates this verse in an even stronger way:

”...for He [God] Himself has said, I will not in any way fail you nor give you up nor leave you without support. [I will] not, [I will] not, [I will] not in any degree leave you helpless nor forsake nor let [you] down (relax My hold on you)! [Assuredly not!]"

I recall times in my life when our Lord Jesus Christ has used a simple timeline document to help me gain a wide-angle view of life…to help me see that God had been there all along.

I remember when I first saw the “Milk Drop Coronet" photograph in a book when I was pulled-out of my regular third grade class for a special class as a child. I recalled it in a journal entry following a counseling session as an adult. Amazingly enough, just a few days following that, the Lord would remind me of His Presence, Emmanuel—God with us, when I saw this same photograph at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. The symbolism was unmistakable to me, my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ has been with me all along—when I was knit together in my birthmother’s womb, when I was chosen, adopted, by loving Christian parents. He was with me when I first saw the “Milk Drop Coronet.”  He was with me when I recalled it in my journal following the counseling session, and He was with me when I turned to look at the darkened alcove to snap a picture of the “Milk Drop Coronet.” He is with me today and everyday into the future. He is with me. He is intimately involved in the tiniest details of my past, my present, and my future.

I remember being a 10 year-old, admitted to the hospital on the Monday following JFK's assassination in 1963, for a routine tonsillectomy. The orderly came to my hospital room where my Mom and Dad were with me waiting for the time of surgery. He pushed my stretcher down the hall, Mom and Dad clinging to my hands, and telling me everything was going to be okay. Suddenly, we came to the elevator, and he said to them, “I’m sorry, you’ll have to wait here. You can’t go with us any farther.” I looked at my Mom and Dad, who looked like they were near tears. As I watched the elevator doors close, I felt a sweet peace encompass me, just like Jesus was wrapping His Loving Arms around me. I had received Jesus Christ as my Savior and had been baptized just a few months earlier. I knew Jesus was with me in that elevator, and He would be with me during the surgery, I was not afraid. I woke up back in my hospital room with the scenes of JFK Jr. saluting JFK’s flag-draped coffin on the small black-and-white TV mounted on the wall at the end of my bed in the hospital.

I remember how my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ comforted with me with the song, Be Still My Soul on Amy Grant’s Legacy CD, which played on “repeat” the entire time my Mom was in palliative care prior to her homegoing. It begins with a  melancholy guitar solo followed by the lyrics to “Be Still My Soul,” a haunting admonition to leave things in God's hands, culminating with a voice-over by Amy. My heart was so captured by it I wrote every word in the Bible I had with me. Even now thinking about it brings back the flood of warm feelings I experienced during those days, knowing that Jesus was with me in her room…gently carrying her home.

Finally, the Lord reminded me of this beautiful rendition of the song, Alone Yet Not Alone, performed by Joni Eareckson Tada. Quadriplegic, Joni, with limited lung capacity due to her disability, had her husband, Ken, pushing on her diaphragm while she recorded the Oscar-nominated song to give her enough breath to hit the high notes

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Linking up with 31 days as an encourager.