Mom Heart Moments #5

Without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.

SEVERAL YEARS AGO, I had two miscarriages in one year, and all of my three children had pneumonia, chicken pox, ruptured eardrums, and encephalitis within two months! We had moved to a tiny town in Texas where I had no friends, Clay had no job, and we were almost out of money. I was tired and struggling with depression, desperately seeking answers from the Lord. Because we lived with my mother-in-law at the time, going for long walks by myself was the only way I could get away to think and pray.

One day, as I was walking and pondering, it was as if the Lord said to me, “Sally, if I took everything away from you that you hold dear, would you still believe in Me?” It was as though God was shining a spotlight onto the deepest part of my soul. And I found at the very bottom of it that I would rather hold on to my faith in God and believe in His love and goodness for the rest of my life than choose a life of existentialism and despair. I also knew this choice would require constant vigilance —that I would have to guard my heart and feed it with the truth of God’s Word and His constancy in my life.

Faith was planting a flag in my heart that day. Faith was my assurance of things hoped for but not seen. Faith meant choosing to hope in Him every day, acting on that faith and hope, and understanding that without this commitment of my will to choosing to believe and hope, I couldn’t be pleasing to God or sense His wisdom and hand upon my life.

I would look back on that day as a day that would determine the course of my walk with God.

Have you made a decision to plant a flag of faith in your own life? What challenges that faith?