It seems that just when you are at a low point, God steps in to show you He is there, by your side, no matter what you may be thinking.
I was recently diagnosed with some painful and on-going conditions resulting from radiation therapy I received last year for my cancer. There is not a lot of treatment options, let alone a cure, for these conditions, only pain management. This news really threw me for a loop as it has been a year since my last treatment and I was expecting to get better and better as more time goes on; now I find out that I will probably never get any better than I am now and that is depressing.
In the midst of this depression, I struggle to continue on with a normal life, as much as I am able. Last Sunday my mother came over to help me plant 50 daffodil bulbs that I had ordered earlier in the fall. I chose to plant them at the top of a two-tiered retaining wall that runs along our driveway. Normally this would not be a difficult project; our ground is usually easy to dig and plant in. Unfortunately it has been a very dry fall and our normally loamy ground is now hard as a rock. We struggled through, dug a trench and put in the bulbs.
As we were re-filling the trench, the plastic bag the bulbs came in started to blow away. Mom reached out to grab it, stepped back, landed on a loose rock at the top of the wall and fell three feet to the next level. There are bushes there, and the leaves had piled up around them, to break her fall, but she did hit her head on a rock which pushed her glasses up and cut her nose. I freaked out and ran around, down the driveway to help her out of the bushes. She was adamant that she was okay; I thought she had broken her nose. She handed me her glasses and I tucked them into my shirt pocket, then helped her up to the house to get her cleaned up.
Back outside, she asked for her glasses and it was then that we realized that one lens had fallen out. I went back down to the driveway and stood knee deep in leaves, searching through the bushes and more leaves up to my elbows for this small, glass lens. Mom kept telling me not to worry about it. Finally I gave up and we worked together to finish filling the trench over the bulbs.
When we were done, Mom said, “Let’s look one more time.” I prayed, more than once, “Lord, help us find this lens.” We dug around in the leaves on the driveway and under the bushes for about five minutes when Mom suggested we give up. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. Just as we were stepping away, I looked down to my left and there it was! It was just sitting on top of the leaves, just like God had set it down there and said, “Here you go. Is this what you were looking for?”
We laughed, we hugged, we danced, we praised God, I even got down on my knees right there in the middle of the driveway to thank God for His help. The neighbors probably thought we had lost our minds but we didn’t care; we were too full of the joy filling us for prayers answered.
And, if God cares enough to help us find a glass lens, don’t you think He cares even more for the big things in your life? No matter what you are going through, financially, emotionally, physically, God is there, right beside you. All you need to do is turn to Him in prayer. Lean on His shoulder, He can take it, He can take anything. Praise be to God. Amen.