abide - christina reeves

​My brother-in-law was hurt in a work-related accident.  My heart was compelled to go visit and sit with my sister as she faced this new reality.  My heart said “go” but my head did not want to enter that ICU room with her and see the state of my brother.
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When I walked into the room, I look towards the hospital bed and noticed that sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach and I experienced myself pulling away both with my body and my emotions.  Then, I paused… and asked myself: “Is this how I want to show up for my sister and brother-in-law in their time of need?”  As a result, I was able to decide to act the way I would want someone to act if I was the grieving wife or the injured husband in the bed.
This month the freedom writers are writing about the idea of “abide”.  How can one little word be so simple and yet so full?

Some of the definitions from Webster:
to bear patiently; to endure without yielding; to wait for; to accept without objection. 
intransitive verb:  to remain stable or fixed in a state; to continue in a place: SOJOURN

So…abiding in God, would be a way of waiting patiently for God and yielding without objection to what He shows us with stability and consistency.  WOW!

I was able to pause and notice because God was with me in that room.  He had asked me to be there for my sister.  I was able to pause because I was acting in love. I was able to pause because of God’s great love for me.

It has been my experience that I am only able to “wait patiently for God and yield without objection, when I make time to invite God into my day and ask what He wants me to do.  I am then able to truly know that He is with me in the day to day.  And I can hold my sister’s hand as we together pray for my brother’s healing in an ICU room. 
I sat by my sister’s side that day and was even able to talk to and touch my brother’s hand.  Time with God made me aware of His strength and enabled me to love.
Mother Teresa said, “There is a terrible hunger for love.  We all experience that in our lives – the pain, the loneliness.  We must have the courage to recognize it.  The poor you may have right in your own family.  Find them.  Love them. She added, “Give yourself fully to God.  He will use you to accomplish great things on the condition that you believe much more in His love than in your own weakness.”

With Love,
Christina