Great is Thy Faithfulness

I was super encouraged by the seminar I attended this weekend. It was helpful re: work and God used it to enrich and encourage my faith as well. One of the best parts of it for me was being around people who were much, much older than me, whose faith is so sincere, tested and mature. Folks who have battle wounds from their years of service to God. Many of them had lost a spouse, child or colleague in part because of their decision to move into hard places in the world to follow God.

I usually love to sing along during worship, but on the last morning, I was sitting in the front row, with 250 people in the room. And instead of singing, I just listened to their beautiful, harmonic voices singing "Great is Thy Faithfulness." Believing every word they said. Even though their lives had been hard, even though there were disappointments and major losses... trusting God's faithfulness, depending on him wholly. Knowing that He tells us in advance that it is going to be hard, that we should expect major hardships...but we should also expect that He'll be there with us and He'll use it to shape us more into the image of Christ. It was beautiful.