BEAUTIFUL IN GOD’S TIME
BEAUTIFUL IN GOD’S TIME
Yaaaaaay! and congratulations to all women as we celebrate Mother’s Day. Remember we had also celebrated Mothering Sunday on the 10fh March, earlier this year. Thank God for all women. We truly deserve to be celebrated.
As we were being especially celebrated in church on Sunday, I had a very vivid recollection of something that had happened to me about twenty odd years ago on a Mothering Sunday.
We were all seated after the Priest had concluded the sermon and the children from Sunday school were brought upstairs to come and give gifts to the mothers.
I was a very matured single, somewhere in my late thirties then. So one of the young girls got to me and handed me a gift. I was touched and I smiled at her and said thank you. And then the most painful thing happened. One of children’s teachers began to scold the girl for giving me the gift and she came around to me and snatched the gift right out of my hand. I had never felt such shame and embarrassment. It was a nightmare and I wanted to just wake up from it. Some worshippers around watched in silence. I was mortified.
That day I got home and wept myself sore. I asked God if this would forever be my lot.
I wept for being single.
I wept for not being a mother.
I wept for being alone.
Oooh how I wept.
But thank God we do not look like what we have been through.
Though I wept, I waited.
I waited on the LORD.
I waited on the One who could do more than I was asking.
I kept waiting on the One who makes all things beautiful in His time.
I kept trusting Him.
There was nothing else to do.
I poured myself into service in the house of God.
I volunteered on the Social Welfare Service Unit of my church and I did it with joy and zeal. Whenever we had our Monday visitations to aged, sick or bereaved parishioners, I would come back home completely fulfilled and joyful that I had made a difference that day and put smiles on the faces of other people.
On Sunday mornings I would make sandwiches for the early worshippers and the priests at the first service and ask my driver to take it to church while I got dressed and ready for the second service. It always gave me joy to do these things.
Fast forward to twenty years later, today I am very happily married to a wonderful man and I am the very proud mother of an absolutely amazing son.
God has been faithful and I am forever grateful.
I learnt that God is never late. Never!
I come to encourage someone here today.
Are you waiting on the LORD for something? Anything at all?
Trust God. He never fails.
My serving on the Social Welfare Team, helped to keep my mind on God. It also kept me grateful. When you see what others are going through, you suddenly realise that you have so much to be thankful for in spite of your own challenges. Besides, it gives you something to hold on to when you cry out to God in the place of prayer. “Remember me for this, my God and do not blot out what I have so faithfully done for the house of my God and its services.” Nehemiah 13:14 NIV This was how Nehemiah cried out to God and God remembered him.
When your mind is focused on God and you are in a place of gratitude, depression cannot stand a chance.
Of course there were tough days to go through every once in a while but I never stayed there. I moved on and carried on my work.
I went through such days trusting that my story would one day change and it did
It is alright to cry when we are overwhelmed by challenges but we must know that focusing on the problem is never the solution.
Serving in the house of God can help take your mind off the challenges. And we must learn that whenever we genuinely do something to help others, we will feel good. “Happy are generous people because they give some of their food to the poor.” Proverbs 22:9 Common English Bible
Regardless of what we are up against even at a time like this, let us trust God to come through for us and while we are doing that let us keep doing good.
At the set time it will happen and believe me, IT WILL BE BEAUTIFUL.
OLUYINKA EGO-MARTINS ©