Doing Valiantly

"Through God we will do valiantly."  Psalm 108:13

My longest, best friend sent me a card a few weeks ago and in it she put a copy of her daily devotional from her Billy Graham devotional.  It said this:

   "There are two ways of getting out of a trial.  One is to simply try to get rid of the trial, and be thankful when it is over.  The other is to recognize the trial as a challenge from God to claim a larger blessing than we have ever had.
   Sometimes God removes our trials, and it isn't necessarily wrong to ask Him to do that.  But often the trials remain, and when they do, we should accept them and ask God to teach us from them.
   As Peter Marshall once put it, "God will not permit any troubles to come upon us, unless He has a specific plan by which great blessing can come out of the difficulty."
   It is through the suffering, the tests and trials of life, that we can draw near to God.  A. B. Simpson once heard a man say something he never forgot:  "When God tests you, it is a good time for you to test Him by putting His promises to the proof, and claiming from Him just as much as your trials have rendered necessary."

Malone is doing valiantly through God.  He is making slow and steady progress but like the turtle "slow and steady wins the race."  There are frustrations and still obstacles yet to climb on this journey but it is a journey and he is moving forward.  So extremely much to be thankful for.  I can't help but have the song "My Redeemer is Faithful and True" stuck in my head most days.

I have said it before but need to repeat it often as I stand amazed.  Malone shared with me several weeks back that for about the first five days he didn't know who I was but knew he could trust me because I had been there.  He had to relearn how to say his ABC's and count and so many many things.  But I stand amazed in this:  he did not lose knowledge of salvation or of what Jesus did for him on the cross or of the fact that the God of the universe loves him. Brings tears to my eyes now.  Again, I stand amazed and in awe!

Mother's Day was an awesome day for me and I'm not a big Mother's Day person.  It was big because Malone cooked breakfast for me and his siblings.  Bacon and eggs and omelettes.  As Townsend says when you ask her what he cooked, "only the best bacon in the whole world."  Praise the Lord for bacon!