the promise keeper

I haven't been sleeping well lately. This usually happens to me when I'm right smack in the middle of a first draft of a story. There are so many questions I'm trying to work through, situations I'm trying to meander, and emotions to which I'm trying to lend some credibility.

Credibility is essential to me.

Without it, a story lacks that glimmer of hope that I want to impart to my readers. The words may be fabulous, and the dialogue intriguing, but if the story lacks that depth of truth that only comes via credibility, then I haven't really produced the story I intended.

Faith's story is a difficult one to navigate right now. It deals with illness and with healing. I won't disclose how the healing comes about, or what type of healing - physical, emotional, or spiritual - takes place, but I will say that the writing of this story has made me stop on more than one occasion and close the manuscript and shake my head in what could only be termed defeat.

And yet I can't ignore the fact that I'm meant to write the story. This evening I went back into the Finding Faith file to see just when I'd created the first notes for this story. Tuesday, September 2, 2003. Three-and-a-half years ago this story was laid on my heart. On that day, the verse for the book came to me:

These have come so that your faith - of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire - may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.                                                                         I Peter 1:7

In those same notes, I jotted down this statement, words that would eventually serve as the purpose of Faith's story: To show that faith - when tried - can reveal a beauty and joy that would have been missed without marching through it. God's promises are true, if we can only find the faith to persevere.

I have to admit that as I took the time to go back and read over these thoughts that I wrote years ago, it was merely yet another distraction - something I could do instead of the actual writing that I NEEDED to be doing this afternoon. And yet - minutes later - I felt my heart begin to melt with the truth that God was once again whispering to me.

His promises are true. Does that mean that prayers are always answered, or that healing always takes place?

Oh, if only that were true.

Yet the deeper issue for me is seeking security in those promises, even when life takes turns and twists that I'm not expecting or maybe not prepared for. That's the point in this story where credibility is a must and I know that in order for me to handle this with care that my heart has to be in the place where God can speak through me.

And the truth right now is that, after a week of watching a family in our church lose a husband and a father to an illness that we all despise with a vengeance, I am reminded that sometimes our path to God's promises wind a very uncertain and painful path. And I need to be okay with that.

But sometimes I'm just not.

After closing the manuscript today, I opened another file to finish up some paperwork on an upcoming ladies' meeting. The title jumped out at me: "Security: Finding Refuge in God and in Friends." How very like God that is to once again use my own words to nudge me into a deeper realm of consciousness.

His promises are true.

And at the end of the day, or at the end of a life, isn't that all that really matters?

                                                                                                                                                                                          

Comments

[Carey]

God's promises are true. I think its the same for everyone, we struggle to hold on to that fact, and believe it wholeheartedly. I know i struggle with it, I doubt His plans, and I do it because I don't understand them, and I probably won't this side of Heaven.

[Rochelle]

His promises are true. Sometimes I can't wait to get to heaven so I can ask Him about all those things I can't comprehend down here, but then I think that when I finally make I won't want to do anything but worship Him. Thank you for sharing your journey of Faith with us.

[Denise]

I totally know where you are!
My mom hung onto the promise that she was going to be healed... all the way up until her death. It wasn't the healing I was expecting, but ya know what? There is no pain (cancer) in Heaven! And the things I've learned and the way my relationship w/ the Lord has grown since her death... well, the healing was meant for me.

[Staci]

Doesn't just KNOWING that His promises are true make you kind of tingle all over? I think it's something that we hear often, but actually absorb very rarely. When we do soak in those promises for a while, it is the most totally amazing feeling. And Denise, you do know exactly where I am! Thank you so much for your words. It's because of people like you, who've lost loved ones to cancer, that I want to make sure it is God - and only Him - that is writing this story. I want to get it right.

[Carey]

Just dropping by to see how you were doing today. I hope you are sleeping better. Did you get your purse yet? I cant wait to hear all about it. Hang in there.

[Dawn]

Denise - ditto!

We don't always understand God's plan but He knows what tomorrow holds and had it not been for the loss of my mother I would NOT be living for God today. It is through those times of heartache and pain that I learned to cling to Him. That relationship is not something I take for granted because He was there for me when noone else was! He still is! He is amazing!