He gives and takes away

Our Father gives life in the form of a new baby; he preserves life in the way of keeping one alive in a car accident; restores life when one faces a terminal illness...but sometimes not.
 
Sometimes He takes away life.
 
Sometimes life is not very easy.
 
Sometimes those we love are snatched from our hands and we are left with an emptiness that cannot be described.
 
Sometimes illness takes away the lives of those we love and care for, and it is hard to see how GOD is really sovereign over all.
 
But He is.  He gives and takes away, and along with Job, who was considered a righteous and upright man in the sight of GOD, we must choose to say in the midst of our pain,

Baruch HaShem Adonai - Blessed be the name of the LORD.

 

 

Last night I was preparing for bed here in Israel, and my brother came to our room and shared the shocking news that a friend that I had not much opportunity get close to had died.

 

Cancer.

 

One more life.

I was shocked.

I was greatly saddened.

Stephanie was not a close friend, but one that had become close in name and in my prayers. I had one opportunity to have a conversation at length with her when I had returned to the states to visit family with Misha.  I had been praying for her since May of 2012 when she was diagnosed with stage 4 Choriocarcinoma, and received updates through her mom, who I have been quite close to since my days of attending the Mt Zion Christian Church in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.  Stephanie left behind her husband Joshua and their four young sons; Isaac, Eli, Logan, and Camden.

 

I don't believe it is wrong to ask why. I do. Although GOD is sovereign, His ways and thoughts are far above and beyond ours. I can't say that I understand. Like a child I come to Him and I do ask why. 

Why was my life spared after I was diagnosed with cancer?

Why do more people not know the things that I have learned about health and healing the body with natural remedies? It breaks my heart, and I wish there was a way to tell the world what I have experienced with health and healing.  All that I have I have been given, and all that I have learned is through another man's research.

 

There is a cure for cancer.  There is life in the face of death. I'm not saying that GOD doesn't allow people to die, and their families to suffer through the result of their loss. GOD doesn't say, "oops!" There are no mistakes with GOD.  Truly it was time for Stephanie's life to be finished here on earth.  Truly life will spring out of this loss, and death will be swallowed up in victory.

 

Still my heart grieves for her family; her precious husband, her little children.

 

Please remember the Hart family in your prayers - Joshua, Isaac, Eli, Logan, and Camden; her parents; Ken & Barbara Andrews, her sisters; Rebecca, and Tana, and their families as they mourn the departure of their beloved and precious Stephanie.