The Hope

I have been meaning to post this on the blog for a while and it has actually been written waiting for me to do so but I have hesitated and I am sorry for that. Today at church and through what my family has been learning is that openness with each other is what family is all about and is the only way we get through the ups and downs of life. Prayer for each other is so important and we could all do better at asking for it. I do want to say thank you to everyone who has been praying for my family with having to deal with the loss of my uncle. A couple of weeks ago my uncle committed suicide and with finding that out our whole family was shook pretty hard. It has been hard to make sense of anything and watch my family go through the heartbreak. I want to ask my fellow brothers and sisters for continued prayer for my family, especially my dad. This coming Saturday the family is having a memorial and I pray that there is healing of hearts, truth spoken, ears and eyes opened, and hearts turned to God. There will be a few people there that we know of that have not given themselves to Jesus and possibly others. I ask for prayer for Rick, who has been asked to basically give the sermon and I have also been called to speak, which is out of my element. That week following my Uncles death and praying again in my favorite place (in the milking parlor) I felt called to share what God has spoken to me. I am not sure if I really want to get up and speak, but I do want to obey. So I am sharing this with you, my brothers and sisters, for encouragement through prayer for my self to go through with speaking in front of many who I have no idea where they are in their walk with God. You all know that I don’t get up in front of others and share intimate thoughts other than through writings. So I just ask for strength to follow this calling I have had. I also thought I would share with you what God spoke to me about and what I will say at the memorial. Here it is-

In the wee hours of the morning on Friday the 8th, I woke up with a start and was wide-awake. The first thoughts in my head were Uncle Richard, whom had been missing since Wednesday and the urgency to pray for him. I have never had this happen to me before but I indeed prayed for my uncle. I sat on the edge of my bed and the words to pray for him came to me. I prayed over and over that my uncle would just call upon the name of the Lord and that is all he would need to do. I am not sure how long I sat there, it could have been a few minutes or an hour but I prayed passionately for his safety. Not knowing what this all meant, I woke up that morning with a feeling of peace. I told my husband Rick about it and how I had this strong feeling that everything was going to be ok. I just knew in my heart that my uncle would be found and that he would be fine and alive and well. I carried this hope with me through that day not knowing that a call later that afternoon would break the family’s heart and shatter that hope that had grown so strong.

Through the days that have followed my mind has kept going back to that early morning and to the strong knowledge in my heart that my uncle was fine. I could not ignore what happened, but why? Was God telling me something? Does He want me to share this with others? I felt the hope wash back over me. I knew then with out a doubt God did speak to my heart and is the giver of hope and life. My natural human thoughts of how this world works was to instantly believe that what I had felt was all wrong and my uncle was truly gone. But now I know through lots of prayer my feelings that he was alive and well are not in the physical sense but in the spiritual sense. My uncle is alive and well in his new body and new home with Jesus. I know that I can’t give you straight facts at this moment as to how I know that He is with God now. None of us were there with my uncle or could read his thoughts, but what I do know is that God is faithful and he never leaves us alone. I do know that God loves us so much. I do know that Jesus died for us and conquered death by rising again to give us life through him. He was there at that moment reaching out his hand with the gift of salvation he so freely gives. Jesus died for us so that we could have life and not just this life but eternal life. God is the God of hope. So let us have faith in God to take care of what we could not and let hope fill our hearts and believe that we will see Uncle Richard again.

Love Steph