"Can you believe?"

It's been a long couple of weeks. Since receiving our diagnosis, I have been struggling--struggling to grasp the fact that this is our reality, struggling to see the face of God is this ugly disease, struggling to hope, struggling...to believe.


During my time with Jesus one day last week, He led me to a verse in Mark: "And He could do no mighty work there...because of their unbelief." And I sat silent. It was true...I had been drowning under all of my doubts--We can't conceive naturally. We can't come up with this money. The procedure might not work. How could we ever afford adoption? We could never pass the inspections. We're just not meant to be parents.


And then I read this verse and my heart was convicted. How many times had Jesus rebuked his own disciples, those who were his best friends, for their lack of faith? They walked with Him daily. They witnessed Him perform miracle after miracle. And still He had to say, "Have you still no faith (Mark 4:40)?"


I sat convicted. I am a disciple. I walk with Jesus daily. I witness the many miracles He performs in the lives of those around me. And still He has to say, "Have you still no faith?" I am a disciple, full of fear, as the boat rocks. I feel the violent shakes of the waves powered by despair and disease. I hear the roar of the wind, the enemy's voice rushing over me, discouraging me. And I cry, "Teacher, do you not care that I am perishing?!" And He rebukes the wind and the sea and whispers to me, "Don't worry. I'm right here. The winds are raging and the waves are high, but I am God over both. I am in this with you and I love you more than you will ever know (Beth Moore, Breaking Free)."


God doesn't always rebuke the wind and the sea. As desperately as I wish it, He doesn't always remove the burden. But He will always, always meet us where we are, in the eye of the storm, and comfort us. Sometimes we simply won't know the why. We won't know how God plans to bring us through a trial, but it will always be victoriously if we can just believe. Sometimes God asks us to just trust, trust in the wisdom of the moment we are in and wait on Him there; not because He isn't ready, but because we are not. As we wait on His timing He establishes our hearts, preparing us to step into His "Yes!" when the time is right.


It's not easy. Waiting is never easy, especially when we're in pain, and when we don't know for how long we'll have to endure our suffering. I think of the woman in Mark who bled for twelve years. For twelve years she suffered physically and emotionally. For twelve years she lived in utter loneliness. For twelve years she endured indescribable pain. For twelve years she lived broken, with aching heart. And then she heard about Jesus. Having never met Him, she believed, "If I touch even His garment, I will be made well." In a crowd of people, she reached out to touch Jesus, desperate. And he said, "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace and be healed of your disease." She suffered unbearably for twelve years and she knew if she could just get to Jesus, she would be healed. She believed.


To believe means that I have to make a daily choice that God is who He says He is and He will do what He promises. To believe means that I have to refocus, to walk away from all of the "How will I ever do this?" toward the "You need only be still, The Lord will fight for you (Exodus 14:14)." Believing means hearing God when He says, "Surely, just as I have intended so it has happened (Isaiah 14:24)," and remaining steadfast in believing His promise that "the pain you're feeling now cannot compare to the joy that is coming (Romans 8:18)."


I love this excerpt from Ann Voskamp's book, One Thousand Gifts: "...the God who governs all can be shouted at when I bruise, and I can cry and I can howl and He embraces the David-hearts who pound hard on His heart with their grief and I can moan deep that He did this--and He did. I feel Him hold me--a flailing child tired in Father's arms. And I can hear Him soothe soft, 'Are your ways My ways, child? Can you eat My manna, sustain on My mystery? Can you believe that I tenderly, tirelessly work all for the best good of the whole world--because My flame of love for you can never, ever be quenched?"


God asking, "Can you believe?"


"Bridget, My child, can you believe that I tenderly, tirelessly work all for the best good of the whole world--because My flame of love for you can never, ever be quenched?"


Sometimes we won't know how God plans to bring us through a trial, but the why will always be "because My flame of love for you can never, ever be quenched."