Then Just As Suddenly...

Psalm 54

Last night I attended a wedding on the North Shore of Oahu. The actual wedding was held in a small chapel on the waterfront of one of the hotels there while the reception was held at a house situated right on the beach. As the wedding went on we were gifted by God with an absolutely beautiful sunset. While at the reception we enjoyed a cool night, a clear sky, and just enough rain to keep us from running amok on the beach.

We celebrated the love of family with hugs, good food, dance, and memories from times past. It was in those memories my cousins and I were able to see just how blessed by God we truly are. Nobody really said it, or offered specifics, but we all know each one of us has had obstacles in our lives. Broken relationships, tough economic times, the passing of close loved ones and the like were shared by all of us.

There was one thing we all shared which we each recognized as the "glue that kept us together"; God. We all grew up in church, we all had parents, aunts, and uncles deeply entrenched in their faith. We lived daily with reminders on how much God loved us. Of course in our younger days it was a God who loved us enough to send us to the fiery depths of darkness if we sinned. Yet, somehow we understood this to be love.

Today's Psalm reminds me of the days of my life; the good and the bad. Oh, yes, there was bad, some would say very bad. Some would say bad enough to be thrown into the pit. Yet, through it all God never left my side. God waited for me. God walked by my side everyday of my life and waited, simply waited for me to put an end to all those things.

The time in my life came to the place where all the bad times (okay, not all, but all the really bad stuff) were a memory and I re-discovered a God who never left me. And now, almost 20 years later, I can truly say that God has delivered me from my every trouble and has helped me triumph all that brought me down. I want to say that I found peace in my life just as quickly as I found unrest. The truth is that both happened over time and if there is one thing I learned about how change is made within us it's that we need to invest the time to build, or re-build the important relationships in our lives.

So, take this with you as your thought for the day - God is your helper, God wants to hold you up in your life. God waits for you to remember you are loved and accepted unconditionally. Then, when you are ready, God is there to, well, for what God has always been there for; to share in your life.