We are privileged to have guest devotion blog writers during the summer. Enjoy hearing from Judy Eick today!
His Word: Prove me O Lord, and try me; test my heart and my mind. For your steadfast love is before my eyes and I walk in your faithfulness. Psalm 26:2-3
Observation & Obedience: “I have proof.” We may have spoken those words as a child, to reinforce our point. Today I am speaking them as an adult because I have witnessed God’s steadfast love ‘with my own eyes’ (another childhood refrain) since my early childhood.
June 11, is the day my mother was born and today I would like to share how God’s steadfast love sustained her hope and has strengthened me.
These were a couple of her favorite verses: I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord which made heaven and earth (Psalm 121:1& 2).
Edith, my mother grew up on a flat land farm. Several years later on June 11, she married my father who declared with pride that he farmed ‘three sides of his land’. Our farm had hills!
At the age of twenty-four, Rheumatoid Arthritis attacked my mother’s body and a pain-filled silence entered into our family.
As she struggled to accomplish the everyday tasks of a farmer’s wife and meet the needs for our family of five, she embraced the verses of this Psalm, trusting that God who made heaven and earth would help her. To her, the hills were directing her eyes to the creator. We witnessed her HOPE.
My mother organized her time between rest and labor, offering her best – the best she could. Not the day of labor a healthy woman could offer, she offered her offering, grateful for the things she could do. I grew up thankful for a body that functioned without pain.
Psalm 26:2: Prove me, O Lord, try me; test my heart and mind.
Because her Arthritis arrived three years before I did, I observed pain and suffering from an early age. Pain can pull the air out of a room and leaves no life untouched. From her, I learned you are not what happens to you.
You are a child of the living God and you are so much more than your circumstances. Participate in life. Participate in living. Lift your eyes to the hills, remembering whose child you are and to whom you belong. I have been a registered nurse for forty years and God has tested my heart and mind. I have seen suffering and I have seen God’s steadfast love.
Prayer: “Dear Father, Thank you for teaching me I can trust your steadfast love. Help me walk in your faithfulness. When pain enters my life, as it will, help me to know you are with me. Help me to remember the times I have witnessed your faithfulness and to trust the future to you. Release me from my need to understand the present and know the future. Help me to trust you in every aspect of my life, now and for eternity. Amen.”
Encouragement: Encourage others along the way and as Francis of Assisi is quoted, “Preach the gospel at all times; when necessary, use words.” As you journey, praise God with songs, making worship and prayer a way of life. Let others see the hope that lies within you. Accomplish what you can, the best that you can, and God will deliver the MESSAGE.
Written by: Judy Eick
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