Hi, Fab Friend!

It’s a hot, summer morning and I hear the birds chirping outside. So before I go to the subject, I’d first like to greet you (if you’re a mom like me) —

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!!!

I’ve gone through some challenges the past several weeks (I guess that speaks for you as well!), and I wanted to share it with you, as you just might be able to relate, too.

To begin with, I want to say that I’m grateful for everything. I turned 45 (!) last week, and I am thankful for all the blessings. Alongside these blessings came some challenges — difficulties, if you will — one after another.

I had already been going through some personal struggles — emotional, relational, spiritual — and was bringing all these burdens before the Lord in prayer.

Then there were these disturbers of the peace who had been stoning our house (about four or five times in a span of a month and a half), breaking two of our windows. Thankfully, nothing was stolen and no one was hurt…we’ve heightened security…and that led me to pray and claim even more God’s promises of protection (Psalms 91 and 23, for example)…and to pray for the people behind that bad act.

Then another trial — my son, who experienced a choking incident about two weeks prior, suddenly became terrified of eating. Meal times would take 3 ½ or 2 ½ hours just for him to take a few bites of food. Throughout this time I would be praying for him, encouraging him that there was nothing to fear, reminding him of Bible promises via his stuffed toys, even having read-aloud history (4 chapters!)...but there would also be times when I would get impatient, frustrated, worried. (Since then, we have gone to a specialist twice, and he has greatly improved as the fear has nearly diminished and he’s slowly getting back to eating the food that he used to eat.)

Along with these also came the stress of packing and unpacking and packing again, since we would be traveling by bus to the city, then traveling to Hong Kong with my side of the family (and imagine my angst, my son was hardly eating, and we were going to travel!). We happily made it to Hong Kong at about noon…but when we arrived, my suitcase was nowhere to be found! My husband reported it to the baggage inquiry lady. Confirming that my suitcase was not in the HK airport, she said they would try to track it and give us feedback. So off we went to our hotel, trusting that God would deliver. Throughout the day, no update. By about 11:30 PM, while lying down, I cried out to the Lord from my heart, drained by the accumulated negative experiences. Then the phone rang. “We got yo baggage,” said the man with the Chinese accent on the other line, who said they would bring it up to the room. HALLELUJAH, THANK YOU, GOD!!! And when I checked the tag, my suitcase made its way to Japan!

(OK, so our family vacay in HK was a blast — though still with the struggle of my son eating, but at least he was enjoying ramen and other noodle dishes…then a side note of me receiving news on the second day of our vacay that the content of two of my websites were beyond recovery due to some terrible virus or something…so I took this to mean dying to the old, hello new life! New site in progress…)

Back at work, I still had brain fog as my first meeting was about…deadlines. My mind was still trying to catch up amid all the physical and emotional exhaustion.

In all of these difficult days, the Lord has been my comfort, my consolation, my refuge, my Savior. If I made a column — one side were the difficulties, and the other side were the blessings — for sure the blessings would still outnumber the difficulties…but man, difficulties can really drain you! And I think I’d go crazy if not for God’s mercy and grace! Which is why one of the Bible promises I hold on to is from Lamentations 3:21-23 (NRSV):

But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

So dear friend, know that in difficult days, you and I continue to have a loving Savior. We may not see solutions immediately, and things may still be in a blur (yes, some of my challenges are still not resolved…this is, indeed, a fact of life), but all these make up that “fullness of life” that Jesus speaks of (John 10:10b). Difficult days might as well be “trusting-more-in-God days” or “hanging-on-to-God-for-dear-life days.” And another consolation is that God will not allow us to go through something that we can’t handle:

No trial has come to you but what is human. God is faithful and will not let you be tried beyond your strength; but with the trial he will also provide a way out, so that you may be able to bear it. (1 Corinthians 10:13, NABRE)

I’ll conclude this email here (if you’ve read this far, thank you for taking time to read this!). How about you? What were your difficult days like? And how’d you handle them? Feel free to email me back, and let me know if you need prayer support. ;)

Blessings!

Mich :)