a year later

It is so strange that it has been almost exactly a year since my last post. A year before that I was in NJ trying to find some way to fund the purchase of my childhood home.

Our brain must store hope and pain, longing and desire in some way that it is rekindled by the seasons, awakened once again by the cycle of time that courses on year after year. I thought perhaps I had "gotten over" this whole thing. Yet I was saddened by my lack of persistence and how easily our minds give way to the "tyranny of the urgent".

Spurgeon, my constant mentor through his enduring work "Morning and Evening" convicted me once again of my inconstancy in prayer.

"The more spiritual the exercise, the sooner we tire in it. The choicest fruits are the hardest to rear: the most heavenly graces are the most difficult to cultivate. Beloved, while we do not neglect external things, which are good in themselves. we ought also to see to it that we enjoy living, personal fellowship with Jesus." -Evening of January 24 from "Morning and Evening"

As long as I felt that there was still something I could do, some hope in my works, I kept my hand to the plow and my heart in prayer. Once all my options had been expended, all hope of human aid gone, my heart grew weary in hoping. So much for " faith is substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" Hebrews 11:1. If I needed some viable options to keep me going then I was hoping in what I could see and not in the unseen.

I admit it, I no longer feel certain that God is going to give us the farm. I feel concerned that I was presuming upon the Lord, finding in his word an assurance of what I so desperately wanted to see, an earthly hope. God is constantly showing me that my hope is in him, for this world and the next. Do I think God will still miraculously give us the farm? All I can say is that HE CAN! It may be his will to show himself strong in this way. I know that he calls upon me to be persistent in prayer and to trust in him alone. It hurts to want something, to long for a home that may never be mine again. But God calls us to bring our requests before him and to trust him with our longings and hopes.

"Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." Philippians 3:6-7

I need that peace about this issue, oh how I need it. My heart aches because I may never walk that broken asphalt drive between house and barn again. I may never see my children run the pathway between house and cottage, the cottage my father built for my mother and he to share while I was waiting inside my mother's womb. These things may never be mine to share but the ache is real and my hope persists. So I call upon the name of the Lord, Creator of Heaven and Earth as he hears my prayer. I know full well that my longing is is some part for heaven and also for a childhood lost so I trust him for his answer and his peace.