‘’God binds up the broken hearted and heals their wounds.’
We have been going through the Psalms. Reaching Psalm 147, my
heart leaped as I heard this verse read. I will never forget, for it was the
first time that the Bible had come alive to me – a living word. I had not long
come to trust in Jesus as my Lord and Saviour. I returned home having visited a
lovely motherly Christian friend.
husband, exhausted, she had cried out to God that she could not go on.
Her situation eased, but it was her husband who had died, not her
aged father. She was covered in terrible sores all over her legs, wounds the
result of her inexpressible grief.
I had been brought up to respect the Bible as God’s word but did
not know God could speak to me through it, but now I had opened my Bible and
here was this wonderful word. I knew God knew and he would bring our dear
Auntie Em through her grief, and he did.
Since then, I have learned to live on God’s word as he speaks to
me so many times through the Bible, and yes, I have come to prove for myself
that God does indeed bind up the broken hearted, for he has bound up my broken
heart and healed my wounds and does and will continue to do so, and I pray this
for you too.
Some of my readers may have heard this story. I believed God had
promised me a husband, but I also believed God was calling me to go to the
mission field. God would not expect me
to go on my own, would he?
After I had settled into life in the highlands of New Guinea, John
had arrived. It had seemed a fairy tale romance, but I was left with a broken
heart, wounded indeed.
Nearing forty now, I felt I could no longer go on believing for a
husband and children. Miraculously, God did heal my broken heart and bind up my
wounds. By faith, whatever my feelings, I learned to speak out, based on God’s word,
‘Lord, I am delighting myself in you and you are giving me the desires of my
heart.’
For the next ten years I fulfilled my calling. ‘The Little
Children’s Mother,’ they called me, and I was a joyful mother of children,
content, - but then God gently prepared me to hand over my responsibilities
abroad.
I came home, from Ghana now, to find the husband God had for me. Recently
bereaved, Joel and I had 26 joyous years together before God called him
home.
I knew that I had the husband God had chosen for me, but with this
great joy was the possibility of great pain. But hadn’t the dream God gave me
so long ago shown us walking together into the glory of God?
Joel had not passed his medical to be in the army yet survived
many years on the mission field in good health. He reached eighty and was full
of faith of what God was going to do through us. He was still preaching and
then a viral infection attacked both of us. The doctor assured me he was over
it but a few days later he was gone.
The morning he died, I had been into one of our Primary Schools to
take an assembly and was able to share my joy with Joel, who had come to the
door to welcome me, for as always, I had known the presence of Jesus, meeting
with our children, blessing them, and yes, I had booked to go in again in four
weeks’ time. A few hours later he was gone.
Yes, I was left with a broken heart, but we had had 26 wonderful,
fruitful years together, and God has been here, binding it up, - healing my
wounds.
The other day I was tempted to indulge in self-pity as I thought
of friends who have had long years with their spouse and more than ready to
soon join them, not the long years of loneliness that I have had.
Shame on me! I needed to
remind myself and declare to you too the faithfulness of the Lord.
Yes, a month after Joel died, I was back in the same school. Struggling
with tears, but with Jesus and his joy in my heart.
I had heard about ‘Walk through the Bible’ while Joel was alive
but was unable to attend the training course. Now it all opened. Such joy, such
love. Tears for a few years, but all part of the healing, and hopefully a
ministry to others struggling in the deep waters of sorrow.
Over twenty years a widow! My tears have long dried up, and the
promise the Lord gave me, that ‘I would be able to turn ready and easily to him
at all times as to a friend alongside.’ This is still true. But still we are meant for
a mate and there is pain in being alone.
Even in my grief I knew God had honoured Joel. Eighty-one years
old, he was preaching a fortnight before he died. He hadn’t suffered and he
hadn’t seen old age. I could have been left with an invalid to care for,
instead of which I was well provided for, in good health and able now to get
more involved in the schools’ ministry, which I so enjoyed.
Then there was our church in Porthcawl. We believed God had told
us that now was the time and almost Joel’s last words were, ‘I believe God is
going to do great things.’
It was soon after Joel died that I heard of Brackla’s plans to
start a church for Porthcawl. The prophetic dream given to Joel was coming to
pass. Grace Community Church is indeed the fruitful bough God had shown us, from
the beginning, and I am privileged to be in membership with them, still able to
pray and encourage.
I am so thankful for you faithful widows who have been such a shining example to me of living as overcomers. May we still be encouragers to others. I may be in a Care Home, but Jesus is with and in me and I know He has sent me to bless others as well as to be cared for, so let us learn day by day to give thanks in everything. God is good, in it all.
THE KISS
Butterfly gentle caress
on the brow of the sleeping child
Father heart strong embrace
for the son turned again from the wild
Peace in the place of warfare
life is only
begun
But what of the kiss of our Maker
breathing life in the form he had made?
And the worshipful kiss of the maiden
In whose arms as a babe he was laid?
The cost of the kiss of our Saviour
crossing out all the wrongs we have done?
And the bliss of the kiss of our Lord for his Church
At the
marriage feast of the Lamb?
‘two-lips’. After Joel’s death, setting out to see the tulip field of Holland, God gave me this fragrant meditation
‘Righteousness and peace
have kissed each other.’ Psalm 85:10
