The Bargain (Day 1 from Cleansing Thoughts)

        SEVERAL YEARS AGO, on a cold winter morning, standing alone in the snow and feeling , frightened, I made a bargain with the Lord. It was not myself that I was concerned for but for my husband.

   For several months, he had been suffering with severe back pain from an injury that had grown increasingly worse. This is a man who doesn’t give up easily, and continued to work until the pain and lack of sleep no longer permitted him to do so. It wasn’t long after that when he finally reached the point where walking became almost impossible. I had felt so utterly helpless as I saw him dragging as he pulled himself  along. The doctors had sent us to a specialist, and he told us that if he didn’t have surgery immediately, he could be paralyzed. There was no time to think, only respond, so surgery was scheduled for the next morning, and he was admitted to the hospital. I barely remember driving home; my head was spinning with things I needed to take care of, not to mention the the feelings of uncertainty that overwhelmed me. I kept trying to push the doctor’s words out of my mind. My husband is a proud man, and I know he would never accept being paralyzed. It had been. Long sleepless night, tossing and turning, trying not to allow my thought to invade  my dreams. The next morning, when I was on my way bank to the hospital, I offered a prayer on his behalf and ended it by telling the Lord if He would heal him, I would go back to church.

   My husband is a very tall man, yet I remember how small he looked on the gurney as they wheeled him away and showed me where to wait. Time seemed to stand still. Every minute was like an hour in itself. As I sat there waiting, I tried to fill my thoughts with anything but what was happening at that moment. I remembered just a few months when I asked the Lord to come into my heart, but I hadn’t been going to church, and I wondered if the Lord had heard my prayer. After what seemed like an eternity, the doctor came in to tell me the surgery was a success and with a few months of therapy, he would regain the full use of his leg. The road to recovery was went well and in a few months he was his old self again.  The Lord had heard my cry and placed His healing touch in the surgeon’s hands. My husbands back was restored , and I kept my part of the bargain. That Sunday morning I went back to church.

   In a time of fear and desperation, I had made a bargain with the Lord. Little did I know then that it would become a life commitment. Some might say it was wrong to bargain with the Lord, that service based on desperation is shallow, but the Lord looked beyond the fear into the willingness in my heart. He knew me better than I knew myself, and He took what I had to give and turned it into what He could use. It has been over twenty year’s since that day, and I have never felt so fulfilled. The Lord has brought us through many trials, but I will always remember our bargain for it was truly the beginning of my Christian walk.