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Part 6 - God's Faithfulness II

Widow's Journal - Part 6

Well here I am, ready as I said, to celebrate ‘God’s faithfulness part two’.

Where do I start?

I think I’ll just jump right in at page 27 of my journal dated
May 21. 

I began this journal last November, eleven days before John died. Its main purpose was to help me remember things I knew would later be a blur.

A lot of it is made up of emails that I wrote or received and then moved to that file.

OK. I’m stalling. I really don’t want to do this. I’ve been stalling for almost two months.

This reminds me of a little story John once told me about two friends who challenged each other to a competition to see who could whistle the best. They decided to make it a little interesting. So to get ready, each of them had to eat several salted soda crackers first and then another friend would give the signal for them to start whistling. Try as they might, all they could do was blow. The friend who might have made a good ‘American idol’ judge, told them, “You can make your mouth as pointy as you want but nothing counts unless you whistle.”

I can’t count the number of times when one or the other of us were not doing what we said we would do, and we teased each other by quoting that line.

…back to May 21 and the continuing story of how God is ‘rescuing me in my time of trouble’.

I had decided to take the morning off from work that day to attend a meeting in our church.

It was a good morning.

Well... mostly good.

The speaker started by having us ask God some questions, the second or third question was, “Ask Jesus how He sees you’, I asked, and the first thing that immediately came to mind really shook me up and made me burst into tears.

The ‘me’ that Jesus seemed to be showing me was in the shape of a heart (complete with eyes, arms and legs).

The heart was split apart from the top and was almost completely broken in two.

That shocked me.

I wouldn't have been surprised by a 'wounded' heart... well I probably would have because I wasn't expecting to see a heart at all.

Anyway I couldn't continue with the rest of his questions.

May 22. I emailed the person who had given me a special invitation to that meeting to see if she could make some sense out of what had happened. She didn’t try to explain it, just wondered, what did I think the Lord wanted me to know about this? (I had no clue, that’s why I had written her.)

May 23. I wrote back and said: I finally asked God the question about what He wanted me to know about this.

I think I might have asked Him that earlier, but didn't get an answer.

Anyway as I was getting ready this morning, it seemed like God told me that He showed me that picture because I didn't know I had a broken heart. (Well that was obvious, or it wouldn't have surprised me so much).

But then He went on and said, (I find that difficult to say "God said" so I’ll say), "it seemed like He said",

'If you didn't know it was broken, how could you ask Me to heal it?'
I don't know, I just expected I would get better eventually. You know, the 'time heals all wounds' kind of thing.” (There's that word 'wounds' again. I guess wounds do heal with time, but breaks don't heal properly unless a physician attends to them first.)
Then came the question, "Do you want to be healed?"
(Boy! Good question! There are some very nice things that happen to widows [what an uncomfortable word, it’s almost as bad as spinster]… like extra love and attention, etc. Hmmm! It's no substitute for John's love and companionship, but it's all I have right now.)…."Because if you're not healed, I can't really use you in the next thing I have for you to do."
Oh… OK …. I want to be healed.... but how will I know what that looks like?  “How did you know what 'broken' looked like?"  (Good point.) 

I then sent the email exactly as the thoughts and words had formed in my mind, and I continued to get ready for the day.

While I was driving to work, after about a block and a half, I saw - not physically, I wouldn’t even call it a vision, it was just an awareness of- two hands directly in front of me over the hood of the car.

First they were cradling my heart, which was still split open, and then they carefully closed over it, putting it together so the jagged edges fit in place perfectly.

But then the hands didn't let go and I understood I wasn't healed yet, just 'set' like a broken arm.

I am content with that for now.

It's kind of like He has put a 'cast' on the break and the 'cast' is His hands. I'm sure He'll let me know when that is finished.

Maybe now you know why I was so hesitant to share this. I’ll let you define for yourself what you think that was all about, but no matter what it was, God used it to bring comfort in answer to your prayers.

When people look me right in the eye with a look that really cares and they say “how are you doing”? I know they want to hear more than just, ”Fine”, but the details need a time and place to be told.

I was also going to tell you about something that God started on Father’s Day but this is long enough.

I’ll have mercy and stop here.

Still held in His hands,

Ev

Read Part 7 of Ev's journal - God's faithfulness III

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