WHEN THE WORST THING COMES...

I held her hand, clasped in both of my own, and because it is still too raw (the hearts still bleed), I cannot and will not go into the details of the deluge of pain that changed everything for her.  But this one thing I remember, as I sat there gazing into questioning and wondering eyes, are her words.  The words were not phrased in a question, thank God, because I had no answers.  I still don't.

"The very thing I feared the most," that mama said, tearful, "has already happened.  Nothing else can be worse than this."

And the next morning, my heart still haunted by it all, I sat at my writing desk and wrote the following words:

"Will I still believe?"

And then...words not written by my hand landed hard on my heart.

"Will you still love Me?"

That whisper belonged to the One that made me, as if He was continuing the thoughts of that same heart - letting me know that He was with me in the silence.  I can hear His Spirit whisper when I can't hear anything else...when the wind is ripping at the world outside, the deluge is pouring down, the earth is trembling, and I, like Elijah the prophet in the Old Testament, stand at the edge of the cave where I have hidden my heart from the pain of life.  He whispers...just like He did then, documented in those pages.  He whispers still.

He even whispers when I hold the hands of the hurting.

In the face of the unfair, will we still believe that He is who He says He is?

Some questions, you answer in a whisper, down deep in the blood and bones because verbalizing the words just aren't enough

And just now, as I think of all this, I read words written by Ann Voskamp (one of the hearers of the God-whisper).  Please read the full post at her blog at www.aholyexperience.com, under the title "When You Just Want God to Show Up and Answer Your Prayers".

"Faith is this unwavering trust in the heart of God in the hurt of here."

We don't always get our prayers answered the way we think we should, but the trying of faith is right there, Ann relays in her poetic way (I summarize).  That is where we learn to believe Him, when there really is no reason to.  Even if He doesn't answer, even if the worst fear comes and gnaws our hearts into a myriad of pieces, will we still believe?  Or will we know that the worst can happen and sometimes does, but God will always be right there in the midst of it?

Will we still love Him and believe in His love, to the very end, after the worst has happened?