When your kids grow up and get married or settled in a career they are happy with, You rejoice for them and sigh in relief. They are settled and ready to live happily ever after!

Then life goes sideways, and their career takes a turn or their marriage that was meant to be forever breaks up.  The pain and disappointment they feel becomes your own and unfortunately you are tempted to doubt the outcome you believed for. 

From the journal . . . . August 2013

Lord, my son is taking this week to go ‘off the grid,’ he says.  He is seeking You and he is seeking peace.  Oh Lord, I suspect he wants direction concerning his ex-wife.  He wants closure.  I want that for him too.  He has resisted because he wasn’t willing to give up. That’s admirable I think, but he still struggles after three years.  It’s gone on long enough.  Oh Lord.  I commend him to You.  I trust You to care for him.  Please don’t let his faith fail.   He admits he’s struggling spiritually, and at times he has been mad at You.  Please reveal Your plans for him.  Holy Spirit, fill him and touch him.  Use him. I totally surrender him to You.

And I Believe God Said:

I receive him.  You surrendered him as your precious little boy.  You meant it then, as you mean it now.  Unlike Hannah _{^{(1 Samuel, chapter 1)}} you were able to raise him.  Trust Me.  Love him and always encourage him to hope and trust in Me.  Diane, encourage the body of Christ. Yes, My body – the church – My bride.  Those who continue to hope in Me will be saved.

1 Tim 4: ¹⁰ This is why we work hard and continue to struggle, for our hope is in the living God, who is the Savior of all people and particularly of all believers. NLT
1 Peter 1:13 ¹³ So prepare your minds for action and exercise self-control. Put all your hope in the gracious salvation that will come to you when Jesus Christ is revealed to the world. NLT
Hebrews 10:23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful; NASB

 Tell the people that they can do all things through Me who strengthens.  I don’t strengthen them to do things they shouldn’t do, but what I have called you and them to do.  I give you, and them, strength to do it.

Phil 4: ¹³ For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.

Thank-You Lord for Your words. You are so good to me.  I love You.  I just started reading Habakkuk – WOW!!  Lord, the preface for Habakkuk is just like You are telling me: to encourage the discouraged because You will prevail!

Hab. 2:1-4 I will climb up to my watchtower and stand at my guard post.
There I will wait to see what the Lord says and how He will answer my complaint.

² Then the Lord said to me, “Write My answer plainly on tablets,
    so that a runner can carry the correct message to others.
³ This vision is for a future time.  It describes the end, and it will be fulfilled.
If it seems slow in coming, wait patiently, for it will surely take place.
    It will not be delayed.

⁴ “Look at the proud!  They trust in themselves, and their lives are crooked.
    But the righteous will live by their faithfulness to God.

And again, as always, we place our hope in the Lord God Almighty and hold on!  It’s so hard to see your kids hurting but the Lord reminded me at one point of the many trials we had come through in our adult life.  The Lord used those things to draw us closer to Him and make us more useful for His purposes. 

Romans 8:²⁸ And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.