I coming to realize that God really knows me and cares for me. He has always been there to help me whenever I've asked for His help. This usually doesn't mean that His help comes in the way I had in mind, or when I think it should, but it always comes. As a good father, God has not given me what I want when I want it, but instead, He have given me what I truly need when I need it.
This trust is why we moved to St. George, Utah four years ago. I had reached the end of the path where medical knowledge petered out. After fifty years of health struggles, the doctors had no idea why I was getting worse. I could barely stand, eat, or sleep. Though I knew that all was not going well, I felt a strong feeling of peace and an assurance that it would be alright.
I prayed with the desperation of a person who knows she is dying and ended up feeling impressed that we should go to St. George. Reasoning that this was the warmest spot in Utah, I assumed that a little vacation from the winter cold would perk me up. But shortly after we arrived, I knew we should move here. It took me many hours to share this feeling with my husband. To my surprise, and relief, he confessed that he also felt we should move to the St George area.
I know this makes us both sound like impulsive people, but we are not. Words like "careful", "experienced", "deliberate", "reflective", "analyzers", and "planners" better describe us. Because of who we are, that is why we suddenly moved.
During my fifty years of major health problems, God had guided me. He had enabled me have the strength to have and raise four children. He helped us build better family relationships than we had in the families we grew up in. Not only did God inspire us know how to change our lives, but He helped us know how to help our children. He also enabled us to always be a step ahead of people who would have destroyed our financial security, and He warned us of dangerous situations. I'll always remember when the Lord warned my husband of an icy stretch on the freeway where he might have been killed, or when we were turned back from our intended trip just in time to find our wiring arcing in the attic and save our home from being burned down, and the family of Cambodians refugees who were staying with us from being injured.
We had seen that the Lord knows what is best for us in the long run. When we didn't get the job we wanted, later the right job in the right place appeared. When we didn't get a new position we wanted, we learned that it would not have been right at that time since our last child was still in high school. We had been unaware when we applied for the job that it would've required my husband to be gone training for many months when our son needed him.
Receiving help in dealing with our challenging experiences gave us the confidence to follow God's new counsel to move to the St George area. Even though I couldn't see how moving four hours south would help my health, or my husband's businesses, or allow us to give more support to our daughter, son-in-law, and their new baby - we did it. We left our four children, all our grandchildren, our friends, gave up my husband's flourishing retirement businesses, and moved away from the town where we had lived for 40 years.
At the time we moved to St George, we had no idea that within a year our daughter and her husband would purchase a home just ten minutes away from us. My over-extended husband has been able to focus on the business he most wanted to do, and my health is better than it has been in many years.
I am grateful that I have been allowed to have challenging experiences in my life. These experiences have given me the opportunity to develop faith in God's wisdom, and trust in His love. They have helped me to feel peace in these difficult times by encouraging me to turn to God for help. I know I am never alone.
(photo - hot air balloon coming down by our home in the St George area)
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