To say my husband and I have been on a wild roller coaster ride would be an understatement. My only consolation is that in the home where he currently resides, he is somewhat sheltered from the storm!

It all began before Christmas. I received word that my husband would soon be ready to transfer out of the behavioural dementia program and into a regular nursing home. this meant I could start investigating our eventual more to western Canada to live near our younger son and his family.

Unfortunately, because he resides in a different Canadian province, in order for my husband to go into a government sponsored care home, he would need a health card for that province, and you can’t get one of those until you’ve resided there for a a minimum of three months. My only option would be to put him in private care in the new province for the first few months, and God put the idea in my mind about how to pay the overwhelmingly high fees these private nursing homes charged.

Private care facilities do not lack in the city where my son lives, and we soon had four good candidates lined up. It was definitely time to start looking at housing for me, and I quickly found the perfect home and put an offer on it, and then I worked night and day to get my current home ready to go up for sale. For all practical purposes, it appeared that God was opening all the right doors, and I had total peace about everything.

Then the refusals began to pour in. It didn’t matter that I was willing to pay their colossal fees. These private homes were apparently only for people with mild difficulties! They couldn’t accommodate Rob’s significant nursing needs!

I will admit that I spent the first half an hour stressing about this. Just ask the poor people who were the recipients of my frantic texts! I had, after all, just put my house on the market, I had in essence bought a home in the new town, and now I couldn’t move my husband there! What would I do?

I know my friends and family began praying for me at this time, because it wasn’t long before God put the story of Hezekiah in my mind. Jerusalem was surrounded by the Assyrian army, and Hezekiah received a nasty letter from the Assyrian king, defying the Living God. Hezekiah did stress for a bit. The Bible records: “And Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord, and spread it before the Lord.” (2 Kings 19:14 NIV). Exerts from his prayer are as follows: “Incline Your ear, O Lord, and hear; open Your eyes, O Lord, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to reproach the living God….Now therefore, O Lord our God, I pray, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You are the Lord God, You alone.” (2 Kings 19:15,19 NIV)

I took my phone, where I had just read the rejection email, and held it out to the Lord. I said, “God, these people are defying the living God! What are YOU going to do about it?”

I immediately felt peace wash over me, and as the evening progressed, I found myself wanting to dance and shout for joy, wanting to praise God with all of my being.

The Bible teaches that we praise God in the midst of trials, and I always try to do just that. But my efforts are always forced and sluggish. This time, the praise just flowed from my mouth!

That’s the power of true surrender! When we take our problems, especially the ones that seem to be defying the direction God is leading, and give them back to God, when we surrender all of the “what ifs” to Him, He fills us with inexplicable joy and an undeniable urge to praise Him!

Whatever bad news you’ve just received, take it back to the living God! Surrender it to Him! And then sit back and experience the inexplicable peace and joy that He gives you!

In His love,
Lyn


Lynona Gordon Chaffart
Author, Moderator, Acting Director, Answer2Prayer Ministries

P.S. God then proceeded to bring another private home, one that was even better, to our awareness, one which accepted my husband for an even better price!