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When Life Stinks, Do What You Know To Do

When our oldest child celebrated her tenth birthday (over eighteen years ago - ugh!), it hit me like a pie in the face: more than half of her years with us were now in the past. That realization formed a new resolve in me. "No regrets" was my new motto of motherhood. I determined that when her adult years came, albeit way too soon, I would be able to look back and say with utter confidence that I did absolutely everything I knew to do in the best way I knew how to do it and with all my heart and strength. That's also when I began to pray for the man she would some day marry (and the woman our son would some day wed).

It was a simple prayer. I prayed for the two most important things to be found in a spouse: that the man Ami would marry love God and love Ami. Nothing else really matters, although I have to say that we got much more than that in our son-in-law (and our daughter-in-law). In many ways, he reminds me of my own husband: he has a tender heart, he values honesty, and he loves to tease and joke - three of my favorite personality traits.

Today is Brad's birthday, and I want to take this opportunity to thank him and honor him in his love and faithfulness to God, his wife, and his children. Even in this season of extreme difficulty; even when everything within the strongest person would scream to give up, he holds fast, he remains. He continues to put one foot in front of the other and walk out each day.

I read John 21 the other day. Peter had given up everything to follow Jesus, and after years of being with Him, experienced, within a week's time, Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem and His execution as a criminal. Peter and the other disciples must have been reeling. They'd seen Jesus once since His resurrection. They knew He was alive, but they didn't know anything else. They didn't know what to do with themselves. They didn't know what to expect. He hadn't told them anything that they really understood.They had lived and walked and eaten with God daily, and now He was gone. They had nothing. They were empty. The promises seemed unfulfilled. Disappointment probably didn't even begin to describe what they felt. What does Peter do? - The only  thing he knew how to do. He went fishing. It's all he had. It's all he knew. It's all he needed to do . . . and then Jesus showed up.

I think that's all God asks of any of us. When it seems like He's left you. When it feels like you're living this life alone. When God is silent - Keep doing what you know to do, and soon, very soon, Jesus is going to show up.
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