Fourth Man in the Fire

“But the great thing to remember is that, though our feelings come and go, His love for us does not. It is not wearied by our sins, or our indifference; and, therefore, it is quite relentless in its determination that we shall be cured of those sins, at whatever cost to us, at whatever cost to Him." --- C. S. Lewis

God's love pursues. There's nowhere it will not go.

I can never escape from your Spirit!
    I can never get away from your presence!
8 If I go up to heaven, you are there;
    if I go down to the grave,[a] you are there.
9 If I ride the wings of the morning,
    if I dwell by the farthest oceans,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
    and your strength will support me.
11 I could ask the darkness to hide me
    and the light around me to become night—
12     but even in darkness I cannot hide from you.
To you the night shines as bright as day.
    Darkness and light are the same to you. Ps 139:7-12

His love followed us from hospital to hospital at the end of 2023 as my beautiful husband went from fighting fit one day to doubled over with abdo pain the next. It pursued us as he was grievously misdiagnosed and as we went off to the coast on holiday thinking it was just what DH needed to recover from an "upper GI infection".

It followed us into a radiology department in a town I'd never seen before, and from there it followed him all the way into emergency surgery to remove a ruptured appendix.

God's love cradled me as I sat waiting, curled on a hospital couch in the middle of the night, absolutely alone. It bore my critically ill husband through a four-hour surgery as his septic abdomen was washed out and chunks of necrotic bowel were removed.

The Lord's love upheld us both through a two-week ICU stay, a second surgery, and the long, rough road of recovery. The Lord's love cast us to our knees, showed us the extent of our helplessness, and greater yet, drew back the curtain on the unending ocean of His mercy. He brought us to the edge of our worst fears so that we could see how very small they are compared to His majesty.

Our God towered over us, the Lion of Judah. He stripped away everything, all of our hope, except for Him, and He was enough.

I had not expected to spend our first wedding anniversary on our knees as my husband fought for his life, but He was there. Fearless and completely in command. God is good.

It is easy to say that now, now that we're home after six long weeks away from our farm, now that my husband is strong again and filled with life, now that we can praise Him for a miracle. Yet, in the valley of the shadow of death, it was still easy to say, easy to see. He was with us in every part of our fiery trial. The fourth Man in the fire.

And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[p] neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-39

We will never be the same after what happened to us. But we are not meant to be the same. Hardship is meant to do exactly what this great trial did: to make us better, more trusting, more hopeful, less stressed, more eternity-focused, more oriented toward the eternal things of the Kingdom of God, because at the end of the day, they are all we have.

I praise the Lord for healing my husband. I praise Him every time I get to wake up side by side with the man I love more than life. Above all, I praise God for being God.

He is so, so good.