"Where Is He?"

 "Then said they unto him, Where is he? He said, I know not." (John 9:12 KJV)

  "My God, my God, Why have you abandoned me? Why are you so far away when I groan for help? Every day I call to you, my God, but you do not answer. Every night you hear my voice, but I find no relief." (Psalm 22:1-2 NLT)

 Just a quick little story, if anyone might have time to listen; this really won't take long. The night that I went home from the hospital, after Marianne was back in Cardiac Recovery, I was so out of it, I really did not know what to do. The only thing I could think of, was to fall to my knees and pray.

 The very first words out of my mouth, were, "Why did this happen?" I was so shaken up, literally, I was shaking so hard I could hardly catch my breath. In that moment, I had felt further from the Lord then I had ever felt! I really don't know how else to describe the feeling, except to say that I felt as though He had abandoned us in our time of need.

 It must have been at least an hour or so, maybe more, because I really didn't feel like moving up from the floor; but I suddenly felt a very strange peace come over me, as if God was right there in the room with me. Strangely, I had such a change of heart, as though I could sense everything was going to be okay and He was going to perform some sort of miracle through all of this tragedy. 

 After a very brief sleep, maybe about 2 hours or less, I grabbed by small Bible from the office, and I went back to the hospital to pray over my wife. One of the first doctors that I spoke to that morning was a brain specialist, who took me out of the room and wanted to try and convince me that Marianne needed to be taken off life support, because she was never going to recover.

 I refused to take any such action, because I truly felt in my heart that God was going to somehow heal her, and I was not going to let them do anything to prevent that from happening. Even the nurse on duty that morning, tried to convince me, by showing me how Marianne's hands were stretched out away from her body, indicating some sort of brain injury that is not normal.

 I spent most of the day praying over and reading her Scriptures. When they made me leave that night, around 11:00, I went home, slept for a couple hours, and went back to the hospital at 4:00. When I arrived in the room, Marianne's hands were no longer spread out away from her body, but they were now tucked in, and she was no longer needing life-support.

 Basically, she was breathing on her own, and the ventilator was only assisting her about every third or fourth breath. Every day I was there, until they told me to leave, and every morning I was back there, at 4am. This was now one of those times when I felt as close to the Lord as I have ever felt. So close, it was as if we were having conversations together all day long. 

 My basic thoughts were all about the Lord, no matter who I spoke to, or about what, the Lord would somehow be part of the conversation. I just felt as though I needed to share that, mostly because I know that He is never apart from us, even in our darkest hour, He is always close by! 

 If you might be dealing with something that you cannot deal with, and it is tearing you apart, realize that it is a lot like drowning; when think that you are going to drown, your so in a mess, you can't even compose yourself. That is when you must relax and let go of everything! He will catch you...

"Yet I am confident I will see the LORD'S goodness while I am here in the land of the living. Wait patiently for the LORD. Be brave and courageous. Yes, wait patiently for the LORD." (Psalm 27:13-14 NLT)