Life is in God's Hands

     Yesterday, I got to visit the 100+ woman I have shared about previously. It is heart wrenching to see a woman dying in a bed without family, friends, or medical care beside her. She can no longer get out of bed and she cannot sit in the sun because the light now hurts her eyes. She barely eats broth and her digestive system isn’t really working. She barely can see or hear. She is a native, Quechua, village woman. They have their own language; it is not Spanish. A man, who is the only male believer in the village, took us to see her. He is the one that takes food to her and looks after her. She would talk to him in Quechua, he would talk to Brittne in Spanish, and she would talk to us in English. It was an assembly line of communication. As she spoke, I took her hand and held it for the entire visit. With my other hand, I would stroke her face to comfort her and soothe her pain. My prayer for this visit was that this woman would feel loved. I know she must be lonely and feel forgotten at this needed time in her life. I just wanted her to feel love. God answered my prayer very specifically. The first words the woman spoke was how much loved she felt by these people! She also said that I was her mother, which to me tells me she felt comforted by me. I don’t know why it awes me so when God answers my prayer but it still leaves me awed, humbled, and amazed at God’s love for me. She continued to share how people would come in and steal from her while she was sleeping. She talked about all her pain and asked the questions, “What have I done so badly in my life that God would not let me die? How long do I have to live like this? Why can’t I just die? Please, bring me something to kill me!” These are haunting questions and ones that nobody but God has the answer too.

     I have known people who wanted to live and couldn’t; and I have known people like her who wanted to die and couldn’t. In my human mind and heart, I cannot understand this. I cannot find the answer anywhere. This is not an issue of knowledge but of trust.
     There are questions in this life that I will never have the answer too. Neither am I meant too. My lack of knowledge and understanding needs to lead me straight to God and rest in His character and His sovereignty. Though I do not understand why this Quechua woman has to lay in a bed, by herself, hurting and lonely, day after day begging to die, I totally trust God for His perfect timing in her life. The days of her life are in His hands and those are hands I totally trust.
     Do you have questions in this life that you are trying to figure out? Can you come to a place where you know you can accept the fact that you may never have all the answers to every question? Can you trust God for all the things you do not understand? If you cannot trust Him for the unknown, then can you really trust Him?

For the life of every living thing is in his hand and the breath of every human being.

Job 12:10