Oh. You. Darling. Thangs. You know how to encourage this Mama. Thank you for lovin’ on me through your comments to my last post. They made me cry in all the right ways. I shared them with my husband and we are both so grateful for you!
Encouragement like yours is one kind of antidote to every illness. Like a tide rushing in, it immediately soothes. I hopscotch around Isaiah for more encouragement and land on this passage:
“I will give you the treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places.”
Isaiah 45:3
Scary movies aren’t my friends and I sleep with a light on. I don’t go looking for the dark, but dark times come looking for us all. The verse doesn’t say God sees the darkness from a distance. And He doesn’t just sit in the darkness with us, patting our hands whispering, “There, there.” If He’s giving us treasures from the dark and secret places, He is in them, shaping the coals into diamonds.
Our usual December plans have flipped on their heads as we move full throttle into scheduling our daughter’s surgery and making plans for her brothers. As a young’un myself, I had a couple surgeries under my belt by age 8 and a couple more by age 12. I would have this surgery for my girl a thousand times over if I could. My own occurred 25 years ago and longer, but I now discover a new secret treasure from that time: I can use my been-there-done-that experiences to comfort my daughter, to share in her suffering.
That treasure makes me cry all over again. In this month of Jesus’ birth, I won’t stop watching to see what other tidings of comfort and joy He brings. God is good all the time.
Have you had a time – maybe years or decades down the road – when you unearthed a treasure from an earlier trial?
Wow, just wow! Thanks so much for this ah-ha moment! I love that God is not watching our darkness from a distance, or just sitting there with us in the midst of it – but He is in them. Good stuff, friend, real good. And I’m praying for you and your girl…really I am.
I know you are, Jamie, and words can’t express how thankful we are for them. You are a gift, ya know that? An extravagant, precious gift.
i have such a hard time choosing joy in the trials. but after? i do find treasures. the woman i am today? i actually kind of like her….and had i not had the trial of anorexia and recovery, i wouldn’t be her. so, yeah. and praying for your daughter.
I adore you, Kendal ~ you are an extraordinary gem! xoxo
Thanks for the reminders of the diamonds to come over here. 🙂 There’s NOthing like His comfort in our dark days. So I’m praying HIS very real nearness to you too, sister.
Thank you so much, Krystal. You bless me beyond belief.
Praying for your family and daughter. Watching your children when they’re sick or hurting is so, so much worse than being sick or hurt yourself. I love how God’s Word speaks when we search and how it speaks for the current difficulty we are in.