bright as the noon day

I blogged earlier about the impact that the retreat had on Mike and I in relation to the way we live, how we give and invest in eternal things, and how touched we were by the lives of the missionaries. Yet through all of that "big picture" stuff, God was working quietly in our hearts for healing and for hope as well. Maybe you know some of the things my family has been walking through the past few years.  We went to this little retreat rather rumpled in spirit, to borrow from Anne of Green Gables. One can only take so many "Jonah days" before the outlook on life starts taking a beating!

"But God."

Aren't those the best little words in the Bible? 

We are (all of us!) at our wits end. We are ready to give up. We are tired, worn down, sick, and sore.

But God, in his mercy, gives us hope, courage, and strength. He meets us in unexpected places. 

Sorry if the following reads awkwardly. I just want to put this out there and don't know why or how to write it very well.

We walked into the conference room and when we greeted one of the directors, he immediately bear-hugged my husband and said "I have been praying that you would come. I kept asking the leaders to make sure you could be here."  He then poured out so many words of affirmation and blessing on my husband that I was sure I was going to lose it right there in the aisle. What a blessing to hear someone who is a humble man of God recognize in your own husband that God is working in his life even when we don't understand what's going on.

So many times this phrase was prayed over, or "blessed over," both of us, but particularly Mike: "may your light rise in the darkness and your darkness shine as the noonday." At the end of the retreat, the same bear-hugging leader came to my husband and prayed for him again that God would make his darkness shine as bright as the noonday. He didn't know our story. He didn't have to, because God knows our story and knew exactly what we needed to hear.

Naturally that kind of interaction with another believer will stick with me. I think about it. I wonder what God means by all of that. So then today I finally get around to reading Isaiah 58 again and am once again strengthened and renewed by the living, powerful Word.

"...If you pour yourself out for the hungry

and satisfy the desire of the afflicted,

then shall your light rise in the darkness

and your gloom be as the noonday.

And the Lord will guide you continually

and satisfy your desire in scorched places

and make your bones strong;

and you shall be like a watered garden,

like a spring of water,

whose waters do not fail." 

 Isaiah 58:10-11 

I don't know what that looks like in our lives right now, but I believe that God is working all these things together for good in our lives. I'm not suggesting that this is a vending machine type of transaction with God - we give money to the poor so that God will fix our problems. Heck no. I'm just so grateful for the time we had to "come away" with Jesus and be encouraged that HE knows and He IS working. And I pray Isaiah 58:10-11 for my husband, saying "let it be so, Lord. Amen."