We will be held

In the wake of Kiley Marten's tragic death, I wanted to express how deeply sorry I am for those who knew and loved her. After attending her funeral yesterday there is no doubt in my mind that she was one special woman. Her fingerprints (as Pastor Tony so eloquently expressed) were left on many people, and I couldn't help but marvel at the legacy she left. She will be missed.

After the funeral I had to look inward at how I am living my life. If people attended my funeral would they really think I was a person who lived life to the fullest and was the best friend a person could have? Would they remember me as a prayer warrior who always took the time to ask "how are you" and really mean it? Would I have been the wife who really had fun with her husband, or the mom who took time to play ball with her son rather than fret over the cleanliness (or uncleanliness) of our home? I really don't know, but I do know that I can start to become the person God wants me to be (and created me to be) today. I do know that my attitude can change even if my circumstances don't. I do know that I serve a God who is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. I do know that I can take time to call a friend, and laugh at the fact that it's 5:30 p.m. and I still haven't brushed my teeth that day b/c I've been chasing a 1 year old. I do know that my God understands everything even when I don't. I do know that my God reigns even in the darkest of times. I do know that I can leave the kind of legacy I was created to leave.

I want to share a song that many of you probably recognize by Natalie Grant called "Held". She wrote this after her friends son died of SIDS. Her friend and her husband had prayed for this child for 10 years, and then this tragic event happened. The words to the song are real but comforting. Even when we don't know why things happen....God is still in control.

Two months is too little. They let him go. They had no sudden healing. To think that providence would take a child from his mother while she prays is appalling. Who told us we’d be rescued? What has changed and why should we be saved from nightmares? We’re asking why this happens to us who have died to live? It’s unfair.

(Chorus) This is what it means to be held. How it feels when the sacred is torn from your life and you survive. This is what it is to be loved. And to know that the promise was when everything fell we’d be held.

This hand is bitterness. We want to taste it, let the hatred numb our sorrow. The wise hands opens slowly to lillys of the valley and tomorrow.

If hope is born of suffering. If this is only the beginning. Can we not wait for one hour watching for our Savior?

(Chorus) This is what it means to be held. How it feels when the sacred is torn from your life and you survive. This is what it is to be loved. And to know that the promise was when everything fell we’d be held.

Let us remember and learn from the kind of life Kiley lived and not the circumstances in which she died. God loves all of us like there were only one of us. We have a specific calling on our lives, purposely ordained by God, so let's not miss it. Life will be hard, and tragedies will come, but let us not forget we will always be held.

I love you.
Robin

I'm Believing God....

For my quiet time, I'm going through a study titled "Believing God". The study captured my eye, because I thought "duh, who needs help believing God"? Well, I do my friend.....I was confusing believing in God with believing God. Can I get an amen from anyone out there? What a difference! How often I have read God's word believing that He is the God who told Abraham to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, or met Moses on the top of the mountain to give him the 10 Commandents, or was with David while he fought Goliath but never put it together that He can and wants to do things as spectacular in my little ol' life if I'll just believe Him to do it by faith?

Sisters, for 2008, I challenge all of us to not only believe in God (that's the easy part), but actually believe God for what He wants to do in all our lives. We can change relationships in our families, workplaces, churches, and even people we see in Wal-Mart if we just start living by faith that God can do what He says He can do. What a revelation!

I want to leave you with one profound question that this study has posed: Do we see little because we believe little, or is it that we believe little so we see little?? I pray this year is full of us seeing and believing!!!! Our God is an awesome God so let's start living like we mean it!!!

I love you.
Robin