Letters to Sarah

Today’s post is part 1 of a series which will be compiled into a companion book to work alongside “Nevertheless: Finding Hope in Suffering”. This series is made up of actual letters to a dear friend named Sarah who is seeking to thrive in her life despite chronic illness. “Letters to Sarah” is intended to be a daily read devotional book for those seeking to thrive in chronic illness. Stay tuned for more to come in this series!

Please like, comment, and share this post with those in your life searching for help and hope in their struggles with similar challenges. We need to stand with and for each other so we can flourish together, no matter what the day brings.

Hebrews 5:8 MSG Though He was God’s Son, He learned trusting obedience by what He suffered, just as we do.

Dearest Sarah,

I’ve been praying for you a lot lately, both night and day. And I think those night-time prayers aren’t just for helping you, they’re for helping me too. They’re for helping me to learn more about the trusting obedience from that verse from Hebrews. Because that kind of obedience demands far more from me than just words; it requires the faith that our Good God can and will provide what is needed, when it’s needed.

For a trusting obedience faith doesn’t rely on sleeping at night to give the strength to get up in the morning and face another day crammed full of expectations from others and myself. A trusting obedience faith doesn’t require shiny or happy or even do-able for this moment or the next but one that stays, listens, and waits for hope. A trusting obedience faith doesn’t demand me knowing what’s coming (or not) and abides in the truth that what I can’t see is far more important than what I can.

2 Corinthians 4:18 AMPC helps this kind of trusting obedience faith to grow in my days and nights – Since we consider and look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are visible are temporal (brief and fleeting), but the things that are invisible are deathless and everlasting.

Brief, fleeting, deathless, everlasting – such contrasts of truth war for my attention in the pain and all too often, prompt a retreat of my faith when I get them out of order in my heart and mind. The dust of today is brief, fleeting. The destiny of heaven is deathless, everlasting. That is truth. That is real. And that truth doesn’t change, no matter if today feels like forever and heaven nothing more than a fable.

As you know by now, I think a lot about growing things and about how things grow. And I think that these kind of thoughts help my weak faith to grow just a little bit more…especially in those nights which seem to last longer and grow darker than I ever thought they could. Because the nights are when our Good God seems to press in closer as my Rock, Shield, and Strong Tower against the pain, loss, and grief trying to choke the tender green shoots of faith, hope, and truth.

He knows those dreams I don’t understand or put into words. He holds close what I cannot – rest, calendars, and what used to be (but now isn’t). He soothes that which is beyond my strength and abilities.

Only He is greater than all of this. And only He can redeem all of this with purpose for good for both you and me for now and eternity.

Praying for you with much love, dearest Sarah.

Your friend,

Beth

Some good news to share – Northeastern Baptist Press will be publishing another book of mine called “Well-Grounded: Cultivating Intimacy with God”. “Well-Grounded” is a Bible study book focusing on how principles from plant and soil science can point us to Jesus through use of the spiritual disciplines alongside questions from Genesis chapters 1-3. This book will be released December 2023 just in time for Christmas gifts and starting off 2024 with a new Bible study.

As always, thank you friends, for your encouragement, support, and prayers with the books and the blog! You cannot know how much your help means to me, all the way down the smallest particle of the soil of my soul.

Be sure and sign up to follow the blog here for more posts and more good news!

https://soulscientistblog.com/blog/

Be sure and order your copy (and one for a friend!) of Good Ground Volumes 1 and 2 – available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other online book distributors including Northeastern Baptist Press.

Click on link below to order directly from Northeastern Baptist Press or to sign up to receive notice of new book releases from them.

https://www.nebpvermont.com/books

written by and copyrighted to Beth Madison, Ph.D., 2023.