Looking Back

I’m preparing to speak at a retreat in a few months and I’m doing some reviewing of my life so I can share with these women some lessons I’ve learned. I am struck by how good my life has been! I’ve been faithfully blessed beyond measure.

Sometimes I didn’t feel that way. Not when I was in a marriage that was very dysfunctional, and although it was restored beyond measure, at the time, I didn’t feel blessed. I just wanted out of what seemed would never be right. I didn’t feel that way when they told me my husband Bill, was dying. I wanted him to live and get better. God provided for me after he died in countless ways that would fill a book if I wrote all of them down.

I felt very blessed when I married again and had a second chance at love. By then I’d learned so many things and that some things in life just aren’t important enough to argue about. I didn’t need to have the last word as I did when I was younger. That second marriage taught me to hold lightly in my hands life itself. I learned to enjoy the moments I had with my new husband. We had a wonderful seventeen months. And then, very abruptly, that wonderful marriage and joy I’d experienced was interrupted when they told me Blair would not survive the brain aneurysm he’d experienced. For a time I felt cheated. I felt we didn’t have enough time together. But as I grieved my loss, I learned to trust God in the hard times. He was faithful then, too.

Four years passed. I began to think I’d never find someone to love and be married to again. I nearly gave up, but asked God if there would be someone who would love me like crazy and love Him—God—more than I did–would He bring him into my life. It seemed an impossible request, but guess what? He provided that person. Yes, he brought Jim, whom I’ve been married to now for more than three years. This man is beyond my wildest dreams. He’s crazy about me and treats me like a queen. He thinks only of caring for me, pleasing me, and loving me as his highest responsibility! He is a lover of Jesus, too. I’m not sure why I’ve been so fortunate, but I want to say I’ve been blessed.

I read today in the second to the last book of the Bible that has only one chapter these last two verses:

And now to him who can keep you on your feet, standing tall in his bright presence, fresh and celebrating—to our one God, our only Savior, through Jesus Christ, our Master, be glory, majesty, strength, and rule before all time, and now, and to the end of all time. Yes.

Jude 24, 25, The Message

He’s getting those who have put their faith in Him ready for eternity. He’s getting me ready. I needed to go through those difficult times to know how much God cared about me. He’s perfecting me and until I enter eternity, it won’t happen completely, but one day….

I’m getting older and it’s hard for me to believe I’m in my fourth quarter—I think the same, I feel the same. One thing is different. As I get older and have more experience in trusting God, I can tell you it’s worth following Him. Believing in Him. I’m rich. Yes, God has brought Jim and I together and we rejoice in our relationship, but even if we didn’t find each other, we both know we can trust that we’d still be complete and be rich because of our faith.

At my mother’s funeral, we sang the song, “Great is Thy Faithfulness.” At my wedding to Jim, we also sang it. Together with joy. I think I want that song sung at my memorial service, too. Here it is:

Great is Thy Faithfulness;

O God my Father,

There is no shadow of turning with Thee,

Thou changest Not,

Thy compassions they fail not

As Thou hast been,

Thou forever wilt be.

(Thomas O. Chisholm)

Isn’t it wonderful to know God doesn’t change? That means that no matter what, I can trust Him! And I do.