Praying in Rough Times

I was thinking about our theme verse for January, Romans 8:28. And when I went to look it up in my Bible, I was reminded which verses come right before that.

Romans 8:26-27:
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is in the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

I’ve always loved those verses. Have you ever been at a point where you were so scared or traumatized or grieving that you found you couldn’t even pray? I have. I’ve been there more than once, and it’s not a good place to be.

But I’m so thankful that part of this Bible passage was tucked away in my memory, and that God brought it to mind. It was a comfort to know that though all I could do was just groan in pain and grief, the Spirit was interceding for me. I felt as if God was holding me in His hands.

I love how The Message states it:
Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans.

What a comfort.

Have you been to the point where you didn’t know how or what to pray?

Missy

God Knows Best

Janet's image yesterday is a great one--the kitten and the lion. Indeed we are more than conquerors through Jesus Christ our Lord. And he can bless us in circumstances that could lead us to despair.

I want to share with you the story of how God worked for my husband's and my good through a serious time of testing just five years ago. Last year in 2008, over 2 million people lost their jobs. Maybe one of them was you or a loved one or neighbor. I don't know about you but I have been poor in my life and it's not fun.

In 2002, about a year after the 9/11 tragedy, my husband who worked in an aviation-related industry, was laid off. This had never happened to us before. And it hit when we had two children in college and two mortgages. My husband of course began looking for a new job. Well, no one was hiring electrical engineers especially if they were over 45. (Just try to prove age-discrimination.)

Since he had worked for his corporation for nearly 18 years, he got a generous severance package. But that ran out and then we started unemployment. Steve began taking home improvement and handy man jobs to bring in $$. Still, corporations weren't hiring.

We were nearing the end of unemployment and we had to make a decision. We could no longer pay two mortgages. My husband's lifelong dream had been to live on a certain lake in the northwoods of WI. We had been able to purchase a piece of property for half price through an old family friend. We had built our modest cottage on it for our future retirement.

Good sense dictated that we stay in IA where Steve was known and didn't have to advertise to get home improvement jobs. Good sense dictated that we sell the more expensive WI property
and pay off the IA mortage and stay in our IA home.

But I knew that selling my dh's dream was not a good idea. So in the face of good sense, we put the IA house on the market and moved to our cottage on the lake. (Leaving our two college-aged children behind too.)

It was easy to find work in IA where we had lived for 18 years, but finding it in an area where we were newcomers was very hard. At the same time, I had decided that I wanted to write historicals again when of course the market wanted contemporary novels.

Fortunately, our house in IA sold quickly and we had that money to live on. But our move north still didn't make sense.

Throughout this whole process, we kept asking God --what do you want us to do? And we got no real answers.

Then I received the best contract of my life for an historical series (my Women of Ivy Manor series). And finally a year after our move north, Steve found work as an insurance surveyor.

Now we are living my husband's dream a decade before we would have retired here. And my decision to begin writing historical romance has been blest with more contracts.

Now the point is that God used my husband's layoff to give us the life we had only dreamed of. And a decade early.

We live in an area of incredible natural beauty.

I'm writing what I love.

Steve is doing a job he enjoys, driving through the lakeland area and taking pictures of houses for insurance underwriters. He works his own schedule and never has to go to an office.

So God used the layoff to move us to where He wanted us to be (where we really wanted to be). There were a lot of tense moments and frustration over the lack of direction from God. But in the end, we are in a better place.

I don't know what trials you may suffering at this moment. You may say, "That's fine for her, but what about my situation?" Instead, I encourage you to stop and pray, "God, help me to have faith that You are using this for my good."

And keep praying that. God has a plan for us and it's always better than the one we could come up with. If you're having rough times, I encourage you to hang in there and see where the present hard times take you. God is always working for our good even when we can't see it.