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Friday, April 8, 2011

Truest Demonstration of Faith

 Thy Will Be Done

There was an article that I read a couple of days ago in a newsletter that Samaritan Ministries (our health care) puts out every month. The story is about a man and his family who are part of our health sharing ministry. It was so moving that I had to share it with you! I cried a lot when I read it and John was so confused. I tried to explain to him that the words were sad, but he didn't get it. He kept wiping my tears.

Here is the beginning of the story, I really recommend reading the whole thing:
As I ran up to him, the first thing I noticed was the Bible. It was small, a pocket-sized book, in black leather. It had apparently been knocked out of his clothing when the car hit him, and had landed beside him in the snow, down off the shoulder of the road.
That was yesterday, a few minutes after 7 in the morning. It was frigid and there was accumulation and black ice and two cars had slid off the busy Interstate. He had stopped and gotten out to help. He had been on the way to work, with his son, and he saw the motorists who needed help and he stopped. Countless others of us drove on by. But he stopped... (Read the rest here)
 What really struck me was the description of the wife's prayer for her husband:
Then she knelt and began to pray.
She may have held his hand, she may have leaned in toward his head. As she spoke, I cast my eyes down and reverently listened. She addressed God. Whether she called him “Dear Lord” or “Heavenly Father” or something else, I can’t recall. But she addressed him, and then she thanked him. And she offered him praise. Her words were not words of pleading, they were words of praise and gratitude. And then she said something like, “If today you wish to call him home and take him from us – thy will be done.”
Thy will be done.
The line from the Lord’s Prayer. The hardest part of faith. At a moment when most of us would be begging God to give us what we want – to spare us our loved one – she asked the Lord to do his will, what he wanted. She trusted him, and had faith in him.
Where could there be a truer test or demonstration of faith than in the snow beside the broken and near lifeless body of your sweetheart and spouse? In that situation, there can be no pretense, no show, only the heartfelt honesty of a soul in direct communion with its Creator.
And in her moment of test, in her own Gethsemane, she literally prayed, like her Savior before her, not my will, but thine, be done.
But if it was not his time to die, if the Lord did not want to call him home, she asked for his life, for her and their children, and strength through the weeks of hospitalization and recovery.
After I read that part, I felt silly for crying. Here I am - a stranger - and I was crying as if this were my own husband. While she had the strength and conviction to ask for God's will to be done and that this whole situation add to the glory of God. I really hope and pray that God will give me the grace to act the same way when I face trials in my own life. This made me realize how much I have to learn about real sacrificial love.

When I read this portion of the story to Andrew he commented on how she was acting like Mary, our Blessed Mother, did during Christ's passion and death. Surely it was very heart-wrenching to watch her Son suffer so, but she knew it was for the glory of God and she desired to be submissive to His will.

This wife and mother is such a great example for me and I will always remember her story. If you didn't have a chance to read the whole story, her husband did die - and now she is a widow with eight children to care for. May Our Lord give her the strength and joy she needs to persevere in this life and be reunited with her beloved in Heaven.

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