I picked five simple ones this year and my husband stealthily added three more to my list. I have a few prayers for 2011 that I feel confident the Lord will answer because He has been in the business of answering a few of my prayers in 2010. It was either 2009 or 2008 when I felt that, despite all my weekly fasting and praying, God wasn't hearing my prayers. Bad things were happening to Christians all around me and I felt like an agnostic. "God is real but He isn't intervening in this awful world," I thought. I wanted to believe that when I died, I would just go to the grave and exist no more, just so that I wouldn't have to believe there is a hell and people I care about are headed there because they don't believe in Jesus. Well, that may have been the darkest valley I ever went through in my Christian life. I didn't want to go to my current church any more and I felt like praying was futile but I kept telling myself that "This is the life I have chosen. I WILL confess in my heart that the Bible is true and, despite my very real doubts, I will tell my children and all around me that GOD IS GOOD even though I feel like He is uninvolved down here!
Well, the Lord honoured my mental tenacity. He saw my weak and faltering faith and he "lifted my head!" I can now say that I love going to my church. He has answered a few of my prayers and I am more excited about my Christian life and the possibilities ahead of me than I may have ever been since my idealistic teenage years. I feel that there are big things around the corner for Aaron and I and our kids and I know that, even if there aren't, and things continue much as they are now, that GOD IS STILL GOOD and I am seeing him at work in the lives of people around me in great ways. The valley I experienced a couple of years ago was very bleak and at the time I shared my traitorous thoughts with no one. My husband had no idea just how bleak my outlook was and I tried to keep a smile on my face despite my inner turmoil. I am very confident that my Lord did not hold it against me. In fact, He has blessed me for "keeping the faith" even when I felt like I had no faith left to keep. HE IS GOOD! I will bless His name at ALL TIMES! "His praise shall continually be on my mouth!" (Psalm 34:1)
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