Then help me learn…

So many times — so many times over the years I’ve asked the Lord to help me learn… Lord, help me learn from this expensive lesson.  Lord, I know the situation I’m in is from You… help me learn.  Lord, if You have handed me this experience… then help me learn.  Lord, even if I say to You, I cannot do this, please do not leave me to myself… please help me learn.

These have been the pleas of my heart many, many times through the years.

There have been many “monuments of trust” or markers of faith in my life  prior to, and since, a  significant, pivotal point of trusting in the Lord.  It  actually came  through a series of events,  taking me quite by surprise, some fourteen years ago when my husband experienced a terrible injury to his hand.  With a newborn babe in my arms,  I entered the emergency room that morning and upon seeing my husband’s condition, I immediately said: All God’s ways are good. That phrase would intensify in meaning for me over the days, weeks and months ahead. I would say it over and over again; I would pray it and I would write it on our windows.

All God’s Ways are Good

Financially speaking, that event came at the lowest point in our “work year” in the swimming pool business — February.  In the Pacific Northwest, the swimming pool business-year is relatively brief and by  February, nearly every year, most every dollar’s been spent, most all the supplies have dwindled and doubts about how things will be taken care of begin to creep in.  Well, for that year, in particular, such was the case.

But God.  But God who is rich in mercy, and the love wherewith He loves us, saw us through.  My husband’s  hand, after much reconstructive surgery and minus an index finger,  took months to heal.  Even if jobs had come to him, he couldn’t have completed them at that time — but there was never a day that we did not know the clear presence and provision of the LORD — His mercies were new to us every morning and His grace saw us through.

It was then that I learned to see what some of you hear me say from time to time:  This is so big, God must be in it. For it was, to us, at the time… so big.  It was then, also, that I began to pray for the Lord to help me learn from this (and numerous other experiences), saying, Lord, this lesson is so expensive:  Lord, please help me learn what You have for me to learn in this.

And so it’s been through the years… lesson after lesson, experience after experience, that I have sought *in the trial* or *in the testing of faith* to ask the Lord:  I know You’ve given this to me, I know You’ve handed this to me,  Lord, help me learn…

One Monday afternoon, a number of weeks after his accident, a couple of friends stopped in for a visit. And as they were leaving and saying goodbye’s, they handed Wes an envelope — which, after they left, he handed to me, saying: This is for you! You see, just the day before, my husband had put a sum of money in the offering plate at church — many different people had given us financial gifts totaling more than we needed that week and so Wes offered it in thanksgiving to the Lord.  I had said, what if we need it next week?  He said, God will provide.

Well, you can see where this is going.  I went to the window that stormy afternoon, and while standing there, I looked out and much to my astonishment, there were daffodils ringing the huge old willow tree in our yard.  I’d not even noticed them before that moment. Further, since that was the first winter for us here in our home, I didn’t even know there were bulbs planted around the willow tree.  Looking back, it was as if the Lord had kept them covered until that day.  Surely, the Lord was  ministering to my heart that day. Seeing those daffodils just beginning to bloom was like seeing the promise of Springtime to come.  In tears of gratefulness, I opened the envelope — it contained the exact same amount of money Wes had  placed in the offering just the day before.  The men who had brought it had no way of knowing about the offering made the day prior.  God had clearly provided.  O Lord, help me to learn…

Help me to learn to trust in You.
Help me to learn to wait on You.
Help me to learn to hope in You.
Help me to learn to keep my eyes fixed on You.

Help me to learn  what You would have me to learn in each experience You hand me.  And help me to learn to accept Your will and way for my life.  With joy.  Whatever comes: Lord, help me to learn.