Salt & Light #27

 

Featuring Post

JourneyingbyFaith.com

 

This past month I have been going through a lot…..and I mean a lot! It’s all been an emotionally rollercoaster. With just having a baby and having to go back home, a state away to visit my Great Grandfather, which of whom we just lost last week, has been hard. As I am writing these words, I am bearing through heartbreak to not be able to go to the funeral that is about to begin in about 12 hours.

 

I am sadden about not being able to make one more trip to see family and to give a final goodbye with them. Today, I became anxious and down right filled with pity for myself. I was thinking of every way possible for me to attend, even my sweet husband was willing to pay for a plane ticket that was out of our price range to get me there for just two days but reality is, it just wasn’t time for me to go and my spirit knew it. My mind was fighting it, my heart was chasing after it, but my spirit knew it wasn’t my time.

 

As I was walking throughout the home, room to room, with anxiety of finding something to do to not think about not being with family, I prayed for the Lord to give me peace about not being able to go. I asked Him to take the pain away of being heart broken of my Grandfather’s death and not being able to say my goodbyes with my close loved ones. Then the Lord reminded me of something…..

 

Exactly eight weeks ago was when we found out my Grandfather had stage 4 bone cancer. The tumor was so large that his ribs fractured from the mass.

 

We received a call that week about the diagnoses which included a short term life expectancy. After hanging up the phone, I looked to my husband and said with a firm painful tone, “I will visit my grandfather at least twice before his time comes.”

 

Within seven weeks I was able to visit him twice. Once with my husband and children and once with my mother and siblings. I couldn’t have even planned it as beautiful as that. Because each time was with people I love and each time I got to pray with them and my Great Grandparents which of whom was the first generation in our family to give their lives to Christ.

 

The last time I saw him was two days before he passed. As we all surrounded around him to pray, I counted five generations within that circle. Five generations that he prayed for and with for the past 45 years of being saved. I was witness to his faithfulness and I got to walk out that day with peace of seeing something my grandfather always wanted to see before he left this earth.

 

After I remembered the last two visits, the Lord spoke to me, “You asked for two more visits and I, your God, made a way.”

 

The pain suddenly began to drift away from my body. The Lord gave me peace. He was faithful to my request. He heard my prayers and answered it. He gave me some relief from the pain.

 

As I read Lureta’s post, I was reminded of how much God truly does answer our prayers to our request of relieving pain, hurt, and sorrow. Even answering them way before we would think we needed Him.

 

I was certain, I was going to the funeral and that I was not going to feel what I been feeling the past two days but God knew and He also knew how He was going to give me peace when I asked for it.

 

Lureta hit it right on target for me when she wrote this: “I felt peace when I made the decision to release to the Father what I no longer had control over.”

 

I hope you find much encouragement behind her beautiful words today…

 

Here is Lureta’s post featuring on Salt & Light Link Up…..

 

I debated writing this post.

 

If not for any other reason, it’s this….transparency is not easy!

 

And it’s especially not easy when our situation is still fresh or ongoing.  Most times we are more inclined to share when we have gone through our experience and come out the other end victorious.

 

But, even just making the decision to share in struggles somehow has the power to be comforting.  Though this post is not about full disclosure, I felt lead to share this much.

 

No one wants to feel pain!!

 

As a Registered Nurse, I know it’s common knowledge that pain is usually a signal that something is wrong.  But as a child of God, I am finding that pain sometimes signal that some things need to be made right in our life.

 

Really both these statements mean the same thing, yet I choose to see the latter as having an underlying hope that is missing in the first.  And oh boy!  When we journey through pain, whether physical or emotional, do we ever need hope!!

 

Continue post here.

 

 

Alisa Nicaud

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Carmen Brown

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Shannon Geurin

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Natalie Venegas

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