Last night we were a little shaken up. I had been gone all day and came home to the news that either John or a Marine he works with would be leaving within the week for that Sandy Spot on the other side of the globe–and that we wouldn’t find out until the next day. We are already planning for a trip to that Spot in the near future… but we weren’t planning on it being quite this soon, or being during the time that the baby is due…

This morning brought the update that John won’t be the one going… due to several work-related factors, his friend is instead. And this Marine doesn’t end up having even a week to prepare–he’s leaving tonight. If you think of it, please pray for his family. He hasn’t even been home six months from a 13 month deployment.

Last night we called both sets of parents, asking them to pray–for peace while we waited to hear, and most of all for God’s will in the situation. About a million and one questions and concerns were running through our heads, and the concious decision to place it in the Lord’s hands is much easier said than done in these sort of moments. But He is faithful to give the peace He promises… after the initial wave of fear, we were able to just rest, knowing that He knew when we didn’t.

My father in law sent me a long email last night, filled with such love, support and wisdom that I felt it warranted being shared with others beside myself. Many of us face difficult times, whatever and whenever they are, and these words apply to just about every circumstance we might be enduring or foreseeing.

Ashleigh, we’re praying for strength and submission. I just read in Luke about the storm on the sea of Galilee today, and the Lord intervened. He well may. But I am reading Job, and the Lord never intervened, but all worked out perfectly.

I don’t know what the Lord will do. Maybe he will work for our convenience. Maybe he has much higher goals in mind, and our convenience may not be as important as our commitment to Him. Further our Happiness is not nearly as important to him as our Holiness!! We in America pursue happiness, and find the pursuit brings happiness.We never reach the goal of happiness, the closest we come is in its pursuit.
Hebrews says we are to pursue holiness, and the pursuit brings the relative holiness we crave, but the goal of perfect holiness is outside of our reach. That one depends on God’s timing. Still, even there our holiness is more important than our happiness. And our perfect happiness like our perfect holiness only happens as God stages our Exodus.

By the way I spoke from Ruth [my father in law is a pastor--here he's referring to a message he preached] and in the KJV there is a wonderfully interesting, quaint and to us partially incomprehensible phrase, “And her (Ruth’s) Happe (1611 KJV Mgn “Heb. happe happened.”) was to light on a part of the field belonging unto Boaz.” “Happe” is related to “HAPpiness” and “HAPpening.” It means “chance” or “as luck would have it” or it “Happened.” NKJV “She happened to come to the part…”

The reason I bring that up is to show the beautiful contrast between happiness and joy. Happiness happens when things happen as we want them to happen. Joy is a deliberate choice engendered by the Holy Spirit, where we have very similar emotions to happiness, including the lightness, the contentment, the peace and rest, the confidence that things will work out according to our desire–but our desire is totally the Lord’s revealed will. Joy is based not on things happening as we want, but on our choice to trust the Lord to run our lives better than we ever could, and to submit in confidence to His will and not consider our own plans and desires except in the context of His revealed will–revealed by the circumstances and the Word of God.

So even in what unsaved would consider hard times, we can rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.