“However, I have taken you along a path that has highlighted your need for Me: placing you in situations where your strengths were irrelevant and your weaknesses were glaringly evident. Through those…desert marches, I have drawn you closer to Myself…You have realized that NEEDING Me is the key to KNOWING Me intimately” -Jesus Calling.

November Timeline:

*2014- an unexpected job loss

*2015- the unexpected death of my father in law

*2016- 3 friends diagnosed at the same time with the same cancer (1 has since passed away, 1 has recovered, 1 now has Stage 3 with metastasis and fights daily)

*2017- an unexpected houseguest with severe depression moved in and completely transformed my life, my thinking, and my family forever.

Looking back like that, I can easily remember the turmoil, the tears, the stress, the angst, the physical pain, the emotional strain (need I go on?) of those days..

It is hard to believe ones knees do not get bloodied from slamming down on them so hard…

It is hard to believe there can possibly be more tears to cry…

But, year after year, we were hit brutally from behind by life and knocked down. Things would seem to stabilize and, as you can see per the timeline, something else would happen.

During those days the only hope I had to cling to was Christ.

There was nothing else.

How would our needs be provided for without a job? Only Jesus.

How could we survive our own grief while helping our mother in law cope with learning to live without the love of her life? Only Christ.

How could I offer encouragement to friends with a devastating diagnosis when fear threatened to overwhelm them and me? Only Jesus.

How do I know what do to to protect a boy who no longer wanted to live? Only Christ.

This year…I have a severe Crohn’s “flare up”. But, I can honestly say after looking through this window into the past, it is nothing compared to what previous years have brought.

And with Christ, who carried me then, I will endure now.

He is faithful.

He will not fail.

He did not leave me then and will not leave me now.

He will strengthen me.

He will provide.

He will give me wisdom.

He will comfort me.

How do I know? Because I have realized through needing Him that I now know Him.

What a gift I have been given through these years…to KNOW Jesus…really KNOW Him.

What an awareness that is today.

I would encourage you to do your own timeline and see the hand of the Lord in your life…it will bring encouragement if you choose to do so.