What A Day!

What a day! Yesterday started early and finished late. Today started even earlier. I didn’t have time to post yesterday, but today I am sitting in a waiting room. Yesterday was a good day with men who are ready to move forward to accomplish great things for God. Today will be a day to minister to my family. Even though I am tired, I am blessed. God has been so good to me. Even though there have been difficult days in my ministry and for my family, God has always shown Himself to be faithful – beyond anything I could ever deserve or ever repay – to walk with me through these days. I have not literally been through a fiery furnace like Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego, but some days have felt like it. The absolute truth, though, is that One like the Son of God (actually, it was the Son of God) was right there in the furnace with me.

For the vast majority of my life, I feel that I have been supernaturally protected. In my ministry, I have had tough times, but nothing like some men have gone through. My immediate family had been spared from most of the things that have affected other families. My grandparents passed away 30 years ago, and while it hurt to lose them, but I was not overwhelmed by grief. In the last 7 years, both my mother and father have died – the first time that I was personally affected by the kind of grief I see all of the time in ministry. Again, I was not overwhelmed. I found that the counsel I have given to hundreds of families over 33 years of ministry to be true. I knew it was in my mind; now I had experienced it in my heart. God’s grace is sufficient; He walks with us through the dark valley of the shadow of death. For those of you who know my family, I hope that you have seen God’s grace working through us during these times.

Last year, the fiery furnace intensified – but only briefly. Our little granddaughter Lucy was born, and her life almost ended immediately. She spent weeks in the NICU, and for days we did not know if she would survive. For weeks after the NICU, the doctors told us that she would likely have brain damage, be developmentally challenged, and have some physical problems as well. Our hearts were broken, but again, we were not overwhelmed. God loved us in tangible ways. Some of it through brothers and sisters in Christ who came around us and acted as His hands, His feet, and His voice. But most of His love came through His tender presence in the waiting room like the one I sit in today and in the parking lot where I walked and walked crying out to Him for my sweet family. And God showed up again, comforting all of us and completely healing little Lucy. Of course, our oldest granddaughter, Hayes, told us first thing: “God can do that.” And He did!

And so today, I sit here waiting for my daughter, Jennifer, to have surgery. It isn’t life-threatening, but my father’s heart demanded that I be here. And I am not alone – He is here, once again in the fiery furnace, loving me. But most importantly, He is in that holding area loving my daughter and His. He is with Rob, a godly young man that loves my daughter with a love that challenges my own – well, he would probably say that it blows it out of the water, and that’s okay with me. God is at their home loving on Sonya as she takes care of Hayes today. He is in Pensacola speaking words of comfort into the hearts of Ashley and Jon as they wait for word about the surgery and as they take care of Ashley’s strep throat and Lucy’s foot, hand, and mouth virus.

I didn’t intend to write this today, but when I get tired, I get emotional. And I am both this morning. But even more that that, I am overwhelmed – not by the fiery furnace of life but by the presence of One Who is not only like the Son of God but is the Son of God. So many people in our world will never know this Presence because they will never know Jesus. Many of them simply shrug off this concept as nonsense, but those who have experienced it know it’s true. There is an old hymn that asks and answers a question that I have been asked many times: “You ask me how I know He lives – He lives within my heart.” If you haven’t experienced this truth, you cannot imagine it to be true, but once you have experienced His presence, you can never doubt again.