Wednesday, August 5, 2009

old letters

Today I opened up my Bible that I used in college. I couldn't find my other Bible, but in opening it I found lots of old papers, sermons, and letters from my parents and friends that for whatever reason I kept. I found a letter from Mike dated 1/16/99. Understand that on that date Mike and I were not dating and were just getting back to being friends and still he wrote words of encouragement all based on scripture. During this time I was facing some challenging situations at school and was so confussed as to what God was doing. Sound familiar (my current life is not much different) So Mike wrote "The most important thing I can tell you is to keep your eyes and focus on God....The Lord will answer your prayers (Jer. 33:3) and He wants to know about your problems (Ps. 142:1-2) The Lord still hears all of your prayers and requests (Ps 77:1) the Lord is living with us even when life hurts and things don't seem to make sense. I know I can't feel your pain and can't make things make sense, but I know that God makes all things work together and beautiful in His time. Don't give up on God or yourself things will make sense soon enough." Pretty funny how life cycles. I grew a lot during that last semester of school and well maybe that is why the trials where there. Now agian God is stretching me and yet I still struggle to trust that His plan is best, and turn to Him in prayer rather than just handle things on my own. Funny how Mike still talks to me through old letters and sermon notes. I am so thankful that I had him as a friend who directed me so often to the scripture and not to himself for emotional comfort and support. So now that I don't have him here for comfort and support I can still be directed to God who loves me more than Mike did and who is living with me working all my situations out for good. Mike left a legacy, I hope I live in such a way that my life will count for Christ and people will come to know Him better. Pray for boldness. Its what I had to be in college during that last semester and its how I need to be now. To live Christ to die Gain!

2 comments:

The Paulsens said...

Reading this made Mike an encouragement to me today, too.

aj said...

Will continue to pray that you will be bold. Be bold in Australia with your travelmate Libby, when you return home and with your other friends. I'm thankful also to mike's legacy that his life always pointed to Christ. May our lives also when we've been seen fit and finished the race point to Christ crucified and alive again. We live because He lives