Whatever It Takes

Have you ever prayed ~ Whatever it takes Lord, just bring that person to you. To my shame, I’ve never had the courage or even the faith to pray that..... before now. About 2 months ago ~ in desperation ~ I begged God to bring one of my family members back to Him ~ whatever it takes. That was so tremendously hard to do. I had fought doing that for so many years. If you are a momma ~ you can likely imagine my greatest fear in praying such a prayer ~ yes, that’s right ~ the loss of a child. And yet it wasn’t until about two months ago when I had reached the end of my rope that I finally begged God to do whatever it would take to bring this person to Him.

It wasn’t until a month later that I realized that two other people had prayed the very same prayer about this person. I can thankfully report that all of my children are very alive and well at the moment. It appears that God was not going to choose my greatest fear to accomplish His will after all ~ at least it appears that way. And yet I find myself walking in the darkest of valleys. I actually thought it was pretty dark before but I am here to testify that things can get darker than we had even fathomed. I know my Lord is with me - walking each step that I walk. Oh how I have claimed Psalm 23 in its entirety -Lo I walk through the valley of the shadow of death ~ I will fear no evil~ thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Balm for my soul indeed.

This "whatever it takes" prayer is bringing many changes to my life and the lives of my family. I will after 24 years re-enter the work force ~thank you Lord that I have my teaching certificate to fall back on; I will discontinue home schooling ~ after fifteen blessed years ~ and that is such a heart break because only three more years were needed before graduating our youngest daughter; I will relocate to my hometown that I have not lived in for over 30 years.

I must confess that I would never ~in a million years ~ have suspected that these changes would be connected to my prayer of "whatever it takes." It is so many changes to handle simultaneously and they aren’t changes I would have chosen but I must keep my eyes on the Lord and off the circumstances and know that God will work all of this to good. He will be victorious. He is doing whatever it takes to bring this person back to Him. I’ve had to remind myself of that a whole lot lately. So dear friends, keep me and my family in your prayers. God can do the impossible ~ but hearts have to be open and willing. May this heart I speak of get to the point of being open and willing.