Year: 2015

It’s not that Yucky

joyouschild Joy in the Journey

keith used 11-9-15

…maybe I should say…anymore.

It’s not that yucky anymore.

In the beginning it was.  Oh, boy…it was!

Pain…searing…mind-numbing…constant.

Tears…all the time…millions, if I could stop to count.

Questions…from the kids…from friends...for God.

This journey…eight years today…has been the hardest I have ever been on.

But also the best.

I tell you, when half of your heart already lives in Heaven, it is easier to live here for it!

As a family, we have been able to fix our eyes more clearly and more steadily on our Heavenly reward…and our earthly purpose.

We had a good life with Keith here…joy, love, laughter…a happy, close-knit family.

As a new family, we had to find a way to have the same things.  After all, we are still here. Both Keith and God expect us to continue to live…wholly, fully, completely.

And we have!  By the grace of God alone, we have!

Is it always easy?  Nope.  But…it is always a joy.

One of my favorite scriptures has become Psalm 34:18:

 11-9-15 C

I have had my spirit, my soul, my being, crushed by the weight of grief…only to be rebuilt by a God who loves me…and my kids…even more than Keith did.  It is good to sit in the palm of His hand!

He is as close as a breath, the center of our family’s every thought and movement.  Not perfectly, for we are not a perfect family…but consistently.

Fanny Crosby wrote a wonderful hymn that expresses so clearly what I feel on this journey:

He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock
That shadows a dry, thirsty land;
He hideth my life with the depths of His love,
And covers me there with His hand,
And covers me there with His hand.

We know Him well…maybe better…for what we have been through.  My boys are growing up with first-hand knowledge of the sufficiency and provision and infinite care of our Savior.  Together, Keith and I might not have been able to teach them as well. I, too, learn to love Him better each day…walking more closely since I have no one else to follow…no distractions.

So…we will spend this anniversary day glorying in where Keith is and where we will be going…missing him here, but living for the day we can join him.

 And that, in and of itself, is enough to make it not yucky.

To God be the glory!

Preparations

joyouschild Grace Again and Again, Joy in the Journey, Trusting the Father

KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA

Today is a busy day at our house.

We are spending Easter Eve, as my kids call it, preparing for guests tomorrow.  Scrubbing, polishing, vacuuming, even mowing…working to make ours a hospitable home.

I even have the little boys cleaning baseboards and widow sills…but don’t look too closely.  They are still learning about attention to detail.

Isn’t the same true with my heart?

I don’t always catch all the dirt.  I can clean all I want, try as hard as I might…but I fall short.  Oh, Lord, I fall short.

And…sometimes…I don’t try.  I admit it.  At least, not like I should.  Like my kids cleaning their rooms, I stuff things in closets, under beds, ignoring real change in favor of a clean-looking outside.

Jesus spoke to the Pharisees about this very issue:

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of it may become clean also.  “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness.” (Matthew 23:25-27 NASB)

That’s what the Savior came for!  That is why He shed His blood!

No matter how hard I try, no matter how much I hide from trying, I cannot achieve what His blood did.  He came to live and die so that I might live eternally!  I cannot even fathom the enormity of that gift.

An old hymn by Isaac Watts brings this home to me:

Alas! and did my Savior bleed
And did my Sovereign die
Would He devote that sacred head
For sinners such as I

At the cross, at the cross where I first saw the light,
And the burden of my heart rolled away,
It was there by faith I received my sight,
And now I am happy all the day!

Easter will come to the Wright house.  Clean or not.  And it will be joyous!

And…eternity will come to each of us.  Clean or not.  And…if we know Jesus…it will be joyous!

Come.  Just come.

Waiting

joyouschild I Can See Clearly Now

waiting pix 1-17-15

Lord, heal my eyes

Each morning, as I did my Bible study, I looked at the note I was using as a bookmark in my Bible.  Each morning, I prayed.

And waited.

And waited.

I had felt led to ask for the Lord to heal.  I was asking.  I was not hearing an answer.

But…I kept praying.

Lord, heal my eyes

Months passed.

I had no expectation of what the healing would be.  I was not praying to wake up in the morning with clear vision.  I was not really sure what the Lord wanted me to pray for, but I continued.

Lord, heal my eyes

It got harder to see at night.  I shared rides whenever possible.  I bought a pair of yellow-lens glasses to help with glare.  And I kept praying.

Lord, heal my eyes

I had done everything that I could.  I just needed to wait.

It was not easy.  I was not always faithful in the waiting.  I was impatient to see better, and scared that I would not.

But God was faithful.  He had a plan.  He was watching.

He used men with medical knowledge He had given them to do a procedure that took less than 20 minutes to restore something invaluable to me.

And He used my literal dark place to work on healing some inner parts besides my eyes…barriers of pride and self-reliance that I did not even know were keeping me from giving pieces of myself to Him.

In His time, and in His way, He healed me.

It would be easy to discount the miracle in my physical healing.  Many in the world would.  But the Bible says that He knows even the hairs on my head (read Matthew, Chapter 10).  I made the choice to take Him at His word a long time ago.

I could also ignore the healing He has brought about in my heart.  Again, I make the choice to take Him at His word.  He brought me here.  He has got this.  And by His grace He allowed me to be part of all that has happened by prayer.

Amen and amen!

Father, thank You for healing me!  Thank You for allowing me to wait on the journey of healing and to see You working.  May I always wait on You.  Amen.