Faith When It Matters

Good Morning and Blessings,

Well, it has been a long road since I last blogged. A lot has been happening in both my personal life and in my professional life, and it all coincides with my last entry concerning a convergence of circumstances. Little did I know at the time that that entry would be prophetic, as well as applicable to the events that I was involved in at the time. So, here we are at the beginning of June and circumstances have certainly converged.

As I write this, I am sitting in Brigham and Women's Hospital waiting for Deb to come through her surgery. In February she was diagnosed with Sarcoma, a rare and often fatal form of cancer. She has already under-gone 6 weeks of radiation treatment and numerous other tests and trips to Boston. Today's surgery is scheduled for 9 hours and recovery is expected to take three to eight weeks. Follow-up will be for 5 years.

Also since my last entry, my Dad has had a stroke and my Mom has undergone detached retina surgery and a cancer treatment of her own, though less severe than Deb's and with great results. So, as you can see, my personal life has been converged upon by many trying circumstances.

Insofar as my professional life, it seems that God is intent upon shaking that up as well. RGM is currently no longer meeting publically on Sunday mornings as we no longer have an active body, though we currently meet Monday nights for home Bible study. We are in the midst of re-evaluating everything we do and how we do it and we plan to press forward with a relaunch date sometime in the coming months. Also, since Deb has been dealing with her sarcoma, I have cut back to half time at work at the Keene Family YMCA, which, of course, means that I have temporarily given up my directorship and also my benefits while I help Deb deal with her circumstances.

I share all this, not to get your pity, but to make my point that we need faith when it matters. If I have not been walking in a good place when things are relatively quiet, how will I ever be in a good place when things come unglued. When "life happens" I must be walking with God prior to that point so I won't be lost in seeking to find Him when it seems to matter most.

So, what I want to share with you all today is that faith matters most when it seems least important so that when it seems most im portant it can be of the greatest benefit to those who need it.

Please, live as if every moment matters and as if faith is something that matters to you, so when you need to tap into it, it will have already been activated in your life. I don't know how people could possibly get through a stretch like that through which I have come if it is without faith. I know my God is there for me, and sometimes that is all that keeps me sane and keeps me moving on.

I pray that you find faith when it matters most by practicing it when it seems you need it least.

Because of Jesus,

PJ