Even If You Don’t
How can you sing the lyric, “It is well with my soul,” when the answer is long in coming? Or perhaps when the answer is “No”?
Earlier this year, God gave me a charge – a challenge, if you will – to make the “right list.” That every single day there will be hard and there will be beautiful and that I would need to make a choice of which “list” I was going to make. This charge has taken more energy than I anticipated, but it has been worth it.
It is worth it…still.
As the layers of practicing gratitude unfold, I have discovered something powerful. It is changing the way I proceed, step by step, into unknown territories.
My hope is in Him, not my story line.
Walking through the valleys of the past several months, training my heart and eyes to fix upon His goodness and His face, there are parts to my story that are unshakeable.
I am His.
I am loved.
He fights for me.
He is for me
My grateful list has grown, sweet friends, and it continues to multiply every day.
Isn’t that representative of who God is?
His math always works out. His goodness always prevails. And just because I may have to wait for it, or perhaps won’t see it with these fleshly eyes, doesn’t make it any less assured of coming. Though I may appear battered by the storms and trials, His love and good plans for me haven’t faltered. I am ok. I am grateful.
And my list just keeps growing.
Here’s the thing, and my challenge to you as well…
Let us be a people who are more skilled at taking note of His provision and grace than we are of our own wanting and grief.
This “Gratitude List” is on my kitchen wall. I love looking at it. I need the reminder. It has helped me walk through the valley with eyes trained upward. So, even if He doesn’t answer my prayers with the resounding “YES!” that I desire, He is still faithful. He is still able. He is still good. And “It is well with my soul.”
Indeed. It is.
The song I am sharing today is from Mercy Me, entitled, “Even If.” Powerful. A sweet sister shared this song with me in a particularly dark time in my life…and it echoes my heart today. I pray that as you listen, you will press in to a peace that is beyond your story line and into the unshakeable love and hope in Him who loves you enough to be who He is. Faithful. Good. Able.
With joy for the journey,
Sarah
