Great Is Thy Faithfulness!

O LORD,  you have examined my heart

and know everything about me.

You know when I sit down or stand up.

You know my every thought when far away.

You chart the path ahead of me

and tell me where to stop and rest.

Every moment you know where I am.

You know what I am going to say

even before I say it, LORD.

You both precede and follow me.

You place your hand of blessing on my head.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,

too great for me to know!

I can never escape from your spirit!

I can never get away from your presence!

If I go up to heaven, you are there;

if I go down to the place of the dead, you are there.

If I ride the wings of the morning,

if I dwell by the farthest oceans,

even there your hand will guide me,

and your strength will support me.

I could ask the darkness to hide me

and the light around me to become night -

but even in darkness I cannot hide from you.

To you the night shines as bright as day.

Darkness and light are both alike to you.

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body

and knit me together in my mother's womb.

Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!

Your workmanship is marvelous - and how well I know it.

You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,

as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.

You saw me before I was born.

Every day of my life was recorded in your book.

Every moment was laid out

before a single day had passed.

How precious are your thoughts about me, O God!

They are innumerable!

I can't even count them;

they outnumber the grains of sand!

And when I wake up in the morning,

you are still with me!

                                  Psalm 139:1-18 

Praise the Lord, O my soul and everything that is within me, praise His holy name!  What a wonderful God we serve!  I am humbled by His unending love for each and every one of us.  His majesty, and power, and glory fill my very being and I can only stand in awe of Him.  Only He is worthy to receive glory and honor and power.  Praise His holy name!

Once again, I have been booked for surgery on September 17th, 2009 for the meningioma brain tumor located behind my right eye [for details see "What the Brain Surgeon Says"].  In Jesus I am made complete and He has made me whole.  My heart sings with joy, for I do not need to take on the anxiousness and uneasiness of this world.  I serve a LIVING God that, through the power of the cross, has saved me and holds me in the palm of His hand.  I am at total peace with what God has purposed for my life and am totally willing to go through surgery, if that is His will.  My prayer is that His will is done in my life for Kingdom purposes.  I know that this is not about me, but rather it is about the Living God and what He wishes to accomplish through me  so that His name is lifted up and glorified.

I want to tell you about the most exciting thing that God is doing in my life right now.  For the past two years the Holy Spirit has continually impressed upon me that I should go to Bible School.  At first I pushed it off thinking that God could not possibly mean me - at my age!  However, the inner promptings did not go away and before I left for summer vacation with my family, I filled out the necessary enrollment forms and set them aside to mail when I returned from vacation.

Now, here I stood with the news of the upcoming scheduled surgery and the question arose.  "Will you be obedient to what God, through His Holy Spirit, has put in your heart, or will you push it off again?"  "Will you trust Jesus Christ where your common sense says otherwise?"   Did this catch me by surprise?  Yes, I have to admit that it did catch me a little off-guard.

That is where faith comes in.  Even though everything seems to call out to our commonsense to abandon the current thought process, I have learned long ago that faith comes from the heart ... and the mind cannot wrap itself around faith's way of thinking.   There will always be things that we face on a daily basis that will bring our faith into question where we are called to venture out and proclaim the promises of God that He has birthed within us through the power of the Holy Spirit - even when everything around us screams it is impossible!  Jesus said, "'If you can'?"...."Everything is possible for him who believes."  (Mark 9:23)   

 I choose to believe steadfastly in Him and the promises that are given to me in the Word of God.  I absolutely trust God in everything and know that I am safe and secure in His care.  As F.F. Bosworth said, "Believe your belief and doubt your doubts."   Well, my decision was to mail off the application form and I am excitedly looking forward to starting my studies at Bible School.  Praise God for His faithfulness!  I will leave the rest, as it pertains to the surgery vs. Bible school, up to God.  He is best at scheduling these types of things.