His Mercy and Faithfulness

“A man's heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps." –Proverbs 16:9

This post is a follow-up to my previous entry “Neighbors” where I wrote about how we never know how the Lord might use us to touch the life of a neighbor. Little did I suspect that the Lord would indeed use me in such a way---just a few minutes after I wrote those words.

Monday morning, I went to take some flowers to my neighbor, a mother of two young children, suffering from cancer. I had no intention of “intruding” upon them as I had heard that she was in her final days and in great pain. I don’t know her very well, as we’ve only had a few conversations. I planned to drop the flowers and card off on their front porch, but the Lord had different plans.

Without getting into too much detail, I’ll just say that when I approached the home, their dog started barking, their front door happened to be open, I was invited in, and the next thing I knew I was escorted back to her bedroom to visit with her. My neighbor was in such a weakened condition that she could barely speak. This whole turn of events was so unexpected and her condition so frail—it has humbled me to the core and made me poignantly re-aware of how fragile life is, how weak we really are apart from Him. I asked if I could pray for her and she said “yes,” so I held her hands and prayed for her and her family.

This all sounds so “spiritual,” but I struggle to sufficiently convey how awkward I felt, how inadequate my words seemed--I fumbled over them and my mind raced to keep up. Thank the Lord He is adequate! I am so glad that He cares for the intent of our hearts and not the eloquence of our speech.

Afterwards, things were even more awkward—she couldn’t speak and was so tired. I will always remember the haunting look of her huge eyes, so big in her thin face, as I said goodbye and closed the bedroom door.

Perhaps this is way “too much information” for an Andrew Partners post. It really is. But I want to be faithful to how good God was in that situation—how He took a common little thing like bringing flowers and turned it into an opportunity to pray with someone so sick and helpless. I feel as if I was given such a precious gift—to pray with this woman that I do not know well, to be a light in her life on a very dark day.

I found her obituary in the paper yesterday. Unbelievably, she died that same day. I thank God for the opportunity He gave me—for me, it is a testimony to His tremendous mercy and continual grace in all of our lives. Who can fathom the greatness of His love—the depths of His faithfulness, and the mysterious nature of His ways?

Please pray for this family as they grieve their loss.