"Look for God's Handwriting!"

"What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee." Psalm 56:3

With the content of my last post, I thought it would be good to balance it with the other side of the story. Although God will "bless" us with the process of struggles, it's a great comfort to know that we have the confidence that He is always there with us.

It's so important when we raise awareness of the nature of God's "blessing", ie. difficulty to strengthen us, that we include traces of comfort to look for. God's blessing, purging, wrestling WILL come and we WILL come through it as pure gold but christians need an assurance in the midst of it. Especially when they've been so conditioned with the opposite teaching, that God is a God of comfort and ease.

We came across this story in the book, Steel in His Soul, The Dick Hillis Story and it really ministered to us so we thought we'd pass it along.

Missionaries Dick and Margaret Hillis found themselves caught in China during the Japanese invasion. The couple lived with their two children in the inland town of Shenkiu. The village was tense with fear, for every day brought terrifying reports of the Japanese advance.

At the worst possible time, Dick developed appendicitis, and he knew his life depended on making the long journey to the hospital. On January 15, 1941, with deep foreboding, Margaret watched him leave.Soon the Chinese colonel came with the news. The enemy was near and townspeople must evacuate. Margaret shivered, knowing that one-year-old Johnny and two-month-old Margaret Anne would never survive as refugees. So she stayed put.

Early next morning she tore the page from the wall calendar and read the new day's Scripture. It was Psalm 56:3 -- "What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee."

The town emptied during the day, and the next morning Margaret arose, feeling abandoned. The new verse on the calendar was Psalm 9:10 -- "Thou, Lord, has not forsaken them that seek thee."

The next morning she arose to distant sounds of gunfire and worried about food and her children. The calendar verse was Genesis 50:21 -- "I will nourish you and your little ones." An old woman suddenly popped in with a pail of steaming goat's milk, and another straggler arrived with a basket of eggs.

Through the day, sounds of warfare grew louder, and during the night Margaret prayed for deliverance. The next morning she tore the page from the calendar to read Psalm 56:9 -- "When I cry unto Thee, then shall my enemies turn back."

The battle was looming closer, and Margaret didn't go to bed that night. Invasion seemed imminent. But the next morning, all was quiet. Suddenly, villagers began returning to their homes, and the colonel knocked on her door. For some reason, he told her, the Japanese had withdrawn their troops. No one could understand it, but the danger had passed. They were safe.

Margaret glanced at her wall calendar and felt she had been reading the handwriting of God.

God's handwriting is all around us but so often in the midst of the wars we face, we neglect to take notice. Let's make an effort to see His merciful hand at work in our lives today. He cares for us more than we can imagine!

(Thanks to George Whitten from Worthy Ministries for the content of this post. George and his family live and minister from the Negev Desert in Israel)