"If He brings you to it, He will bring you through it."

This was the title of the sermon at our church yesterday. We had a guest speaker from Canada who was going to share his testimony of how God has brought him through his journey with cancer. Sadly, he found out about a week ago that his cancer is back after about a year. Despite this however, he is able to answer questions of "How are you?" with an honest and heartfelt "Top shelf." He shared about how he had gone through times of anger and depression, but through it all there was strong evidence of God working in his life. For this coming season of sickness, while frustrated at the situation, he talked about his eagerness to see God at work again, and the changes that first had to be made in his heart to get him to a place where this can truly be his attitude.

The message came at a really good time for us, because Jesse had just been in an accident the day before. He was coming home from a wedding in Delaware and hydroplaned into the guardrail as he was exiting I-95. The car is a little worse for wear, but he's fine. It was hard to figure out what I should be feeling. Obviously I was really thankful that he was okay...he means infinitely more to me than any material possession. At the same time though, I was disappointed because it looks like all of the money we got for wedding gifts will now be going toward getting the car fixed rather than setting up our home, which I was really looking forward to doing. It caught my attention in the sermon when he shared a quote he had read saying, "For every pagan diagnosed with cancer, there is a Christian in the same circumstances charged with the responsibility of showing how Christ enables us to react and respond." (That wasn't word for word, but I think that was basically what it said). I don't know about the statistical accuracy, but it did shed a whole new light on our circumstance.

We kind of suspected that something would happen eventually...meaning that everything had been falling so perfectly into place and we found ourselves constantly needing to pray that God would reveal to us that we are not self-sufficient and that all that we own is really His. Now He has blessed us with the opportunity not only to see that prayer answered, but with the chance to show faith in Him through challenges! I know it's not as "big of a deal" as being diagnosed with cancer, but I have to believe that our God is just as capable of and worthy of being honored through this situation too!

So for answered prayers and strengthened faith we are thankful indeed...now comes the exciting part of seeing what God chooses to do! :D