Taste and See

     Several years ago my father in law began to change.  He was being faced with the reality of death.  He had lost his father, and was watching God bring our son back from renal failure and possible death.  And so he walked and prayed under the stars.  He was walking through a wilderness of the soul.  He was coming clean again. 

     My husband did not have a very close relationship with his father as a child or even as a youth.  His father was wrestling with the demons of drugs, lust, and a wounded heart while Chris was growing up.  Then, six years ago, his father experienced a deeper faith in a God, which until then, had only been distant. 

     Something that had been hard and painful at times began to take on a sweetness.  God was bringing good out of bad.  He was buying back a soul from a pit.  The love and forgiveness my husband gave my father in law was a healing balm for a fragile soul.  We watched someone come alive.   I watched God draw a father and son closer together. 

     This week, Chris’ father will be moving ten minutes away.  We have never lived so close to him, not in body or in spirit.  We are all tasting and seeing that the Lord is good.  It is like a good pancake.

     Tonight I will gather up rich milk, sugar, eggs and butter to make pancakes.  We will savor the sweetness of our meal together.   And just as in Passover, our children will ask us why we do this on this night every year.  Tonight we will recount all the wilderness journeys that we have walked that ended not in the bitterness and gall of death, but with the sweet goodness of God’s faithfulness.  We will tell our children that we can taste the sweetness of a forgiven life because He tasted the bitter gall for us. Tonight, I will treasure up all of His bright designs

      This year, I pray that our pancakes will taste a little bit different.  I pray that they would become even sweeter than the last. 

~ Your Fellow Sojourner

 God moves in a mysterious way

His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea
And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never failing skill
He treasures up His bright designs
And works His sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy and shall break
In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err
And scan His work in vain;
God is His own interpreter,
And He will make it plain.

-William Cowper