Miracles Despite My Unbelief

As we enter the Christmas season, I am overwhelmed by God’s love for me.  This past year God has shown His great love for me in a multitude of ways.  He continues to show me my sin and all the habits that make that sin my default behavior.  He hasn’t condemned me, but instead whispered encouragement and surrounded me with love and peace as He shows me new ways to live in this world. 

The biggest, tangible blessing has been in the form of reconciliation and mended relationships.  For years I’ve prayed for the relationship with my step-daughters to be all that God desired it to be.  This year, when all hope of a relationship with them diminished, God showed me that my hope hadn’t been in Him, but instead I put hope in me and my plans.  Then He showed me all that He was capable of. 

It is overwhelmingly gorgeous. 

Every hope, every tearful plea, every heartfelt desire for our relationship has been given.  I praise His holy name!  For the first time, in our entire marriage, it feels like we are a family.  There is unity, there is laughter, there is communication, there are hugs and kisses, there are cuddles, and there is unconditional love. 

So many times I sit before Jesus, begging, pleading for this or that.  So many times I ask without really believing He can or will do it.  Yet, time and time again, He shows Himself to me despite my unbelief.  I am so grateful that Jesus became a man and understands our human weakness. 

I was reading in Mark, chapter 9.  There is a story of a father who brings his son to Jesus.  The father tells Jesus that his son is possessed by a spirit that doesn’t allow the boy to speak and makes him convulse, foam at the mouth, and grind his teeth.  The spirit had tried to kill the boy with fire and drowning.  The disciples couldn’t drive out the spirit.  The father asks Jesus if he can do anything.  Jesus tells the father this, in verses 23-24, “‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for one who believes.”  Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”

Whatever we face, whether it be grief, stress, relationship issues, financial burdens, health crisis, despair, enter what you’re facing here, Jesus is bigger than it.  He is absolutely able to do more than we can imagine.  I’ve seen it with my own eyes, time after time, this year.  May He continue to help me overcome my unbelief. 

In every situation. 

For all the days He blesses me with.