Letter #9: A Quiet Love

Dear Sister

Each time I falter, I go back to my list. I add to it even years after its start. I read from my first entry to the last. It’s my written reminder that as God carried me then and He will carry me today. He is actively engaged in our lives so that we can trust Him with every broken bone in our body. 

I always smile when I see the word “Harriett” on my list.  

Immediately, I am transported to the afternoon I was one of two people in the theatre watching a movie about Harriett Tubman, an uneducated black woman used by God to rescue hundreds of slaves.  Her life, which was fiercely wrapped around faith in the  God she knew, gave me courage. 

With tears I started talking with God as I left the theatre “Lord, Harriet has known more suffering than me. She couldn’t read or write and yet you chose her to lead others. She didn’t have a map or know which direction to turn, yet she prayed and you rewarded her faith. You actually used her suffering to bring about the saving of many lives. Thank you for giving me the idea to go see the movie. You wanted me to meet her." 

Or the time I lay my head down on my desk which was spilling over with legal papers and out loud I cried out to God ~ “please  Lord, help me! I can’t think, I can’t breathe, I don’t want to be here, how can I even make sense of all this?”  I finally pulled my head up and through tears started straightening the papers into a neat stack. As I was gathering them together, a little piece of paper fluttered to the ground. It was a verse from a friend that must have gotten stuck in the legal papers but was released just when I needed to read it: “The Lord God is with you. He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you. He will quiet you with His love. He will rejoice over you with singing.” Zephaniah 3:17

I fell to my knees. God heard me. God saw me. God was with me. I was not alone. He would provide the help and strength I so desperately needed. I was on Holy Ground with Him right by my side. A good night’s sleep and a lightened heart had me back at my desk the next day. Same stack of papers but with a different mindset. 

You are not alone today, dear friend!