Morning Lord! Well here we are, Bible Study day, so I thought I would check in with you before I go so that everything is straight between us. I must say that I do feel much more on the same wavelength as you since I realised the need to let you be the one to direct the ship and not me pretending to be a good captain – so to speak. I pray for a blessed time with the other mothers and for your hand to be, as always, on Libby as she brings us your word. Thank you for bringing her into my life. She had proved to be a most welcome and unexpected friend. I feel like without her and without Daniel I’m not sure I would have made as much spiritual progress as I have over the past twelve months. Of course such progress could also be a very big spin-off of having committed to this prayer journal as well I suppose. Whatever the reason, I give you thanks and praise.
I’m not the only one experiencing revelations. Andrew went out last night for a catch up with Cameron so that left Caroline and me at home in a reasonably peaceful house after the children (including Christian) went to bed. We got talking in a way we don’t usually manage with either the children or with Andrew around, and it was interesting to hear some of the things that Caroline has been learning about her own life and faith.
She said that she had come to see how, over the past few years, her trust had not been in you at all but in the security of her relationship with Logan and in her wealth and possessions. Of course when absolutely all of that disappeared, and then Christian got diagnosed, she felt as though every last thing she ever relied on disappeared in one fell swoop. She no longer had a home, any money, a husband or even anyone to turn to, and she’d got so comfortable with the externals of her life that she had lost her ability to even turn to you. I guess when you don’t speak to someone for a long time it can be difficult to know how to turn back – and all the more so when it’s the Lord of Hosts and you know you are in the wrong.
Thankfully you are an awesome and forgiving God, Lord, and that slowly Caroline has been able to open up to you and to commit all to you. She told me that coming to live at our house was key to this as she saw in Andrew and me a really different relationship to the one she had with Logan and also with you, and that we literally helped save her in every way imaginable. Now I don’t know about that, but it was a real blessing to think that we were so instrumental in helping her to change and move forward – that we could be that Jonah Tree for her.
I pray you would continue to use us in this way, Lord. Of course my first instinct is to qualify that prayer by asking that such a use would not involve us actually having to play host to another guest, for pretty much as long as I live, but then, I realise that if I am to be used by you it must be on your terms and not my own, Lord. Instead, without qualification (although with a tingle or two of nerves) I pray that you would continue to work in and through me for your good purposes, whatever that may entail. I lift all before you in your mighty name…Amen