Gathering Rubies

---

Joel 2:25 - "And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpillar, and the palmer-worm, my great army which I sent among you." 

My friend’s son, Steve, had a severe car accident as a teenager that left him a paraplegic. Once a strong, healthy boy, he was now confined to a wheelchair. My friend told me that as she was ironing one day and having a conversation with God, that she asked Him to look at Steve’s scarred and blistered hands from pushing the wheelchair – to look at how swollen and torn his flesh was. She cried out for Him to heal Steve’s hands. “Look at his hands, Father. Please look at his hands.” 

As she was interceding for Steve, God spoke to her and said, “Have you looked at my Son’s hands?” 

At that moment she realized that her grief had blinded her. Not that a mother wouldn’t grieve… of course we would; He expects that. But grief that becomes our sole focus is grief that destroys, and God knows that. Grief that blinds us to God’s love KILLS.  It's like the Cankerworm - it eats away until nothing is left. 

I don’t know how many times she prayed for Steve and hoped for his healing. But when that hope wasn’t realized, her faith diminished, and her vision blurred. She lost sight of God’s sovereignty; she lost the ability to see any good except for his healing. Her hope was no longer in Christ alone; her hope was in Steve alone. Her hope could not say, "Not my will, but Your will". Hoping for her son to be healed wasn’t wrong; it was natural. I have hoped for my sons’ healings, but hope in a singular outcome, not allowing for God’s will, can plummet us into despair if the one thing we hope for isn’t realized. Having hope that someone will be healed, and then they are not, has caused some to walk away from God. 

Christ desired to not have to go to the cross, to not have to take on man’s sin and be separated from His Father. He hoped for a different outcome when He ask the Father to take the cup from Him, but He surrendered His will to the will of the Father. If He hadn’t relinquished His desire, where would we be? 

If we hope for an end to the suffering and the suffering doesn’t end, what do we do?... when we’ve waited on God – year after year enduring the pain, with the expectation that it will end soon… and it doesn’t? What do we do? We might find ourselves questioning God’s love. We might find ourselves questioning His very existence. We might find ourselves building a golden calf of grief… That is what Satan would tell us to do. 

Our only hope should be in Christ, who does not disappoint. We might not see the thing we hope for this side of heaven, or we might. Either way, our hope is realized. 

Luke 12:25 says, “You are on the path of my choosing.”

The simple words, “Have you looked at my Son’s hands?” spoke to her so deeply that she was able to consider the pain God must have experienced as He watched His Son have nails driven into His hands as He was nailed to a cross -- a cross of humiliation that separated Him from His Son, as He died for the sins of man. My friend and her son Steve had suffered greatly, but neither had been asked to suffer unto death. Neither had been separated from the love of each other, or from the love of their Father. She was the one who had separated herself from the Father. She no longer believed in His love for her or His love for her son. But the revelation that day of God’s great love set her free. She remembered who He was. She remembered who she was. What had been hidden from view for years was in plain sight. She returned to the Father, and the Father restored what the Cankerworm had eaten... her faith, her love, her peace, her hope, and her relationship with Him.

She was now ready to defend Christ when confronted with the question: ‘How can a loving God let this happen to Steve?’ You see, a person with an experience is never at the mercy of someone with an argument. She had an experience, and God needs people with an experience to combat those with an argument. When the world screams God isn’t real, people with an experience still professing His love and mercy, prove He is.  Be the proof of His existence!

Until next time.

Libby