After all ... You are sovereign

Hello, long lost readers. Oh, wait - I am the long lost writer. Where have I been? Oh, you know the answer to that ... it's an answer we all know how to give - "I've been busy."

The odd thing, though, is that I have thought about this blog and have had things to share. Many times I wanted to sit down to write, but couldn't figure out which words to use.  Truthfully, the post I wanted to write but never began was to be titled "A New Normal." I had the title, but not the words. Or, should I say I had the words inside me but couldn't come to put them on the virtual paper. Why was that? Because my last written post was about my dad. And about 5 weeks after writing that post, my dad entered into the presence of his Savior. Then, the new normal began.

But I didn't know how to get the words out.  Life goes on, it's not like normal before my dad passed. But it's normal ... a new normal. I don't really like the new normal.  The reason is simple - I miss my dad, and that is part of the new normal.  Yet, at the same time I love living this life with which God has blessed me. But, how can I enjoy things without my dad here? It's an odd paradox. Happiness in the midst of sorrow. Pleasure mingled with pain. Joy punctuated with sadness. So, I avoided writing most days because I didn't know how to put those feelings into words.  It seems now, though, that I just did.

What is different about today, I wonder? I can't pin point it for sure, although I have some idea. All I know is I've been meditating for many months on God's sovereignty. Do I "like" His sovereign plan?  No, not always. But does my like or dislike change Him or His plan?  No, never.  And who is God? He is I AM.  The only one in this universe who can be named and described with no boundary of time or space. So rightfully, sovereignty belongs to Him.  

There is a song by Meredith Andrews titled "Not for a Moment (After All)".  I've heard this song on the radio for a while now. However, a couple of months ago I heard it afresh while working in the house my husband and I have been remodeling (okay, really he's been remodeling it and I've had the chance to help every now and then). As the song played on the radio the lyrics struck me differently.  I guess it's because I had been studying and meditating on God's sovereignty for quite some time.  The chorus goes like this:  "After all, You are constant. After all, You are only good.  After all, You are sovereign.  Not for a moment will You forsake me."  I sang out loud with the radio, meaning those words in a way I never had understood before. The past year's experiences and the lessons God had been teaching me poured out of me like water being squeezed from soaked sponge. I sang those words fervently and fully to my Constant, only Good, Sovereign God who never has and never will forsake me, even when His ways hurt for a time here on this earth. I planned to sing them in my church as well the next opportunity I had to do so.

Fast forward just a bit to this present week.  Shocking, saddening news met me at my classroom door on Wednesday as one of my principals delivered news to me that our Children's Pastor at Faith Church had suffered an apparent massive heart attack. My heart broke for his wife and three children. He was so young.  He had so much more life to live and work to do ... at least, in our plans he did. But in God's plan ... His constant, only good, sovereign plan, Randy Gray's work was complete here.

Not for a moment will You forsake me.  After all, You are sovereign.

The words from the song I had planned to sing in just another couple of weeks rang out over and over in my head. The Gray family will have a new normal. They will feel the paradox of emotions that losing a loved one brings, especially when we are believers who know our loved one is a believer now home in the arms of Jesus.  They will need each other and the rest of us as they wrestle with God's sovereign plan.  They will not like it, but God will not change.  He is constant and He is only good.  And He will not forsake them.  He did not forsake me and will never do so.  Randy Gray, like my father, now understands that in full.  Here on earth we continue to walk day by day, trusting in His plan until our day comes, when we, too, will see face to face our Savior and Lord.  Do you know that peace? Do not wait another day to make certain. Remember that your plan is most likely not God's plan, but His way is perfect.  After all, He is sovereign.