Season 4 Podcast 2 “Trust in the Lord”
It is the New Year, time for resolutions. I can’t think of a better way to start the New Year than with a message of Hope. In this podcast I am going to do something a little different. I am turning this podcast over to my wife and at my invitation she is going to tell part of her story. Linda and I were married in the year 2000 following my first wife’s death from cancer. Linda has seven children. I have six. We have a baker’s dozen, with 43 grandchildren and 5 great grandchildren.
This vignette is from her autobiography, “Ye Daughters of Zion, Trust in the Lord.” Linda does not like the public eye, but she has an amazing story to tell and hopefully I will be successful in getting her to share future stories of inspiration as well.
Let me begin with her favorite scripture:
“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” (Proverbs 3:5-6)
I Shall add to that one of my favorite poets from one of my favorite American authors, Emily Dickenson.
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
I think you will be able to tie both the scripture and the poem to Linda’s own life. Her story, though different, is all too familiar. Faith has two famous children, Miracle and Hope. Without their mother Faith, daughters Miracle and Hope would never be born. If the mother is Faith then the father is tribulation.
At the birth of her seventh child, when Linda was barely out of the hospital, her husband abandoned her and his children and sought happiness elsewhere, leaving her with seven children to raise alone under the age of ten, without child support, without an education, without a means of support, and without hope.
In my life I have experienced times when I felt a total lack of hope. When I was left with seven young children to raise on my own, I was terrified. I didn’t have the skills or the education needed to support them with the physical necessities of life, and I felt empty spiritually. I decided that if I exercised faith in God and moved forward doing the best I could with what I had, my Heavenly Father would bless me with the miracles I needed. I had always tried to be obedient and serve him so I was confident that he would bless my little family. Actually, the opposite happened. Everything that could possibly go wrong did. Everything broke down, the furnace, the car, the refrigerator, the lawn mower, and the list could go on and on. We were faced with significant illnesses, there was no child support, no income or hope for income. How could I pay day care for seven children, the oldest just nine years old? It wasn’t a matter of months, but of years. The challenges were insurmountable.
As I faced my uncertain future, I learned a great deal about hope. First, I learned that faith comes first. One must exercise faith to find hope. No matter how difficult things are, a loving kind Father in Heaven will strengthen us and help us. He doesn’t remove the obstacles, but He does shape us, and teach us. He cares about the details of our lives and will help us to find solutions for all obstacles. I learned that God’s ways are always superior to mine. And that is where hope comes in.
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