Sunday, January 25, 2009

Hard decisions...

were made last week by our family. Hard because the decision involved putting away the "wants" to choose the "needs".

The industry that employs my husband is not really at its peak right now. In fact, what used to be a peak is decidedly a valley. Maybe even a shallow sinkhole. That's deepening. I've shared before how the last year of trusting God for daily bread has been its own lesson for each of us in how God provides and His perfect timing for such provision.

The lesson marches on.

We are of the mindset that you should stop spending before things get really tough. While others take the view of spend while you can before things get really tough. My flesh sure does err towards the latter choice. Yet another provision of God to me in the wisdom of Husband to curtail me. Lovingly.

For us, the current administration doesn't foretell hope and change of any sort we desire. Perhaps man-centered hope and self-exalting change, but not the hope and change that Christ teaches.

Someone asked me the other day how do you raise children in this time when things are so hard, and the inevitability of times worsening looms. I was reminded of a conversation I had years before children with my mother-in-law (Mil). She recounted the wisdom of her own mother.

Mil's mother lived during the Depression and really knew hard times. Times where they knew people literally starving and begging because no one had anything. At all. Mil was saying she couldn't imagine having children and raising them during those times (it was the 60's of free love, free drugs, and free free). Her mother replied, "We raised children during the Depression when all you had was hope. And hope is what you need to give to your children the most."

For a believer, hope is centered in Christ entirely and utterly. Apart from Him, we have no Hope. In Him, we have all Hope. He is the One and Only Hope.

Hard decisions pale next to the radiant Hope of Christ.
Find rest, O my soul, in God alone;
my hope comes from him. Psalm 62:5

2 comments:

  1. Amen to Christ being our ONLY hope! In tough times I remember the stories of my parents trekking on foot hiding during the day and traveling at night to escape out of Russia with no thermos full of anything for their journey. No thermos period. God brought them out, took them through and lead them on to the USA with hope for their future. The best thing was my father finally responding to God's call on his life in 1963 and God still guides, leads, brings us through and gives us the ultimate hope of spending eternity with Him! God is good! Praying God's provision for your husband's work and for bringing your family through these times...

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  2. Thank you for these words of hope. We are looking at some hard decisions ahead pertaining to my treatment and finances. You have encouraged my heart.

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