[Faith-talk] Daily Thought for Friday, March 7, 2014

[Paul]

Hello and greetings once again in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  I hope that your day is going well, whether that be morning, afternoon or evening when you read this.  As for me, well, as the old saying has it:  "I'm too blessed to be stressed." I first heard that phrase from my good friend Alan from the Dallas-Forth Worth TX area.

Here is another of those stories that most of you read last year but, as I said previously, there are those who haven't read them before, so I hope the repeat won't bore most of you.  Marian Westra of Marshall, MI wrote the following piece entitled "A New Trust," rendered as follows:

Just another dreary March day, I thought, looking out the kitchen window.  Not a bit of color.  No hint that spring might arrive soon.  And it had been a long, long winter.

My husband, Raymond, was sitting at the table in his wheelchair while I cleaned up after our breakfast.  "Are you the lady who's keeping me here?" Raymond asked in a testy voice from behind me.  "I want to go home."

I turned from the window and walked over to him.  "You are home, honey," I said, patting his shoulder.

This may have been the toughest year of our 62-year marriage.  Raymond had grown so feeble he could no longer walk, and it took all my strength to help him in and out of the wheelchair.  What was even harder, though, was his worsening dementia.  Time and again he'd ask me who I was or where he was.  It exhausted me physically and emotionally.  I'd prayed a lot about our situation, but lately, I felt as though God wasn't really listening.  He seemed just out of reach.  I'm at my wits' end, Lord, I prayed.  Please give me a sign of spring to show me you hear my prayers ... something.

I finished the dishes and wheeled Raymond into the living room.  He liked to sit in the soft ruby-colored chair by the picture window and watch the neighbors go about their day.  I settled him in the chair before I opened up the drapes completely.  Suddenly, his eyes lit up.  I turned to look through the crack in the curtain to see what had caught his attention.  A robin sitting in the branches of the tree, a respite of red against the grayness.  Maybe God was listening.  Then I pulled open the drapes.  That's when I saw it.  There on the lawn with its patches of grimy snow were _hundreds of robins.  It was a blanket of red from our driveway all the way down to the street!

And there you have Sister Marian's article which I hope you enjoyed and was a blessing.  All this proves that God doesn't have to act in a big way to answer our prayer requests, but can and, I believe oftentimes, answers in little ways.  Do I have a witness here?

As I copied this out for the second time, I was reminded of a special person who also lives in Michigan who receives this, and I also hope that it was a blessing for her also.

And now may the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob just keep us safe, individually and collectively, in these last days in which we live.  Lord willing there will be another Daily Thought article for tomorrow.  Your Christian friend and brother, Paul