God is good all the time...even on hard days.

Today was easily one of the most difficult days of my life. I said farewell to my beloved home and my adored cats. Both the home and the cats were gifts from God, and saying goodbye was, frankly, heartbreaking. If you have tried to get ahold of us, you know that for most of the day, I have been incommunicado--letting myself recover from the shock of saying goodbye in private.

I understand a little better the Psalmist who said "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." I have always read those words a little flippantly. It has a nice flow to it, a balance to the sentence structure that makes me pleased in my English teacher heart, but I'd never really contemplated the meaning for me personally. But in the last few days, it seems like I've done nothing but the "taketh away" part. I told Marc today that though I am humbled by God's choice of our family, today was one of those days when I wanted to stop saying goodbye to beloved people (or cats) and things. Today it felt like too much. I actually rarely feel like God is asking more of me than I can do, but today...well, today was different. My career, my friends at work, my very identity, okay...but my cats? my home?

One of the lessons we are learning in front of our children (aren't those the lessons that really "take" for them?) is that our devotion, our service, our commitment to God has nothing to do with how we feel. Yes, there are incredibly emotional moments involved in being a Christian. But emotions change, and God never changes. Never. He is still the same God who parted the sea for the Israelites. He is still the same God who called us in the first place. He is still the same God who has worked miracle after miracle in our behalf. And so even when emotion makes us want to throw up our hands and shake our fists, we do not. We look at our stones of remembrance, we remember the path He has led us down, and we recite to our children the things that the Mighty God of the Universe has done for us. And we walk on, following the path that He has made straight and clear.

Even today, we received two beautiful letters that were such an encouragement. Even now, I hear Sarah Beth in the shower singing, "You are God alone" at the top of her lungs, even after such a hard day--when she went with Marc to deliver the cats to their new homes. Even now, as I watch Hannah sneak around taking notes (she watched Harriet the Spy today, and it seems to have made quite an impact) and I hear John and Marc playing checkers, I know that I have been blessed beyond measure, that He has given me far more than He has asked of me. And I know that He is good all the time...and all the time, He is good.

No matter what, no matter where, no matter how much He asks of me and mine...blessed be the name of the Lord.

His,
Kellye