Enough.

Look around you.
I see my eight year old daughter assembling a puzzle at the table.
I hear the soft breathing of my youngest through the baby monitor.
I see rolls of carpet that represents a lot of money spent in hopes of home improvement.
My dog is curled up on the floor at my feet.
In a moment, any one of those things could be gone.
The soft breathing could stop, the carpet could burn and the dog could meet his fate while challenging the snow plow as he often does.
I challenge you to look around and find something that is not temporary, something that you can hold onto forever, something that is not at the mercy of the temporary nature of this earth.

February 13, 2004, while 20 weeks pregnant with our last child, our only son, I stared death in the face for the first time. The doctor made no guarantees and my husband and I waited in angst to hear if our unborn baby was going to live or die.

During this time of turmoil, these dark hours, God met me there. I scoured the pages of my Bible, feverishly searching for a story that would promise me a favorable ending. The thought of putting this precious life into the ground was something I couldn't even bear. I needed to KNOW that God would not require that of me. After hours of searching and nurses telling me I needed to rest, I slammed my Bible closed. I looked toward heaven and reminded God of my faithful service and reprimanded Him for His failure to meet me in my anguish. How dare He turn His back on me in my darkest hour. How dare He walk me through this fire. I didn't deserve this.

Sweetly. Quietly. Undeservedly. His voice spoke truth to my angry and fearful heart. The verse is tucked away in the middle of the tenth chapter of Hebrews and reads like this: "Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful." Hebrews 10:23 Although these weren't the words my weary soul wanted, they were the words my weary soul needed. Although everything around me seemed to be crumbling, the confession of hope had not been moved simply because the Promiser had not been moved. 
In those quiet moments in that dark and solitary hospital room, God quietly spoke truth and peace to the inmost chambers of my heart. "Tiffany, you search for a promise that you will be spared from this trial, but that is not what I will give. What I do promise is that I am faithful. I am faithful in life and I am faithful in death. I am faithful in sickness and I am faithful in health. I am faithful in all things and at all times. I am faithful when your spouse hurts you. I am faithful when the Doctor fails you. I am faithful. When it is there that your hope is found, you will not be shaken. Though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, you will not be moved because I am faithful." 


For those that know the ending and for those that don't, I will say that my baby was spared. For now anyway. He too is a temporal being, under the curse of death as is every other living thing on earth. He is dying just as I am dying. His days are numbered just as my days are numbered.
God's Word commands us to "set our hearts on things above and not on things of this earth" (Colossians 3:2)for the simple reason that everything on earth is subject to the temporal nature of this earth. When our hearts find our fulfillment, completion and hope in people or things of this earth, we find ourselves in a dangerous place. People will fail, things will break and living things will die. If our everything is summed up in these things, there will come a day when you will stand before a coffin or hospital bed and watch everything you live for slip through your fingers. You will find your hope snuffed out and your heart angry. BUT, when the first affections of our hearts are given to Christ, everything else becomes a blessed detail. While those blessed details fill our lives with beauty, we recognize that they themselves are not the source of the beauty. Just as Abraham held loosely to the life of his beloved and promised son (Genesis 22, Hebrews 11) we too must hold loosely to the things our hearts are inclined to worship. When we fail to do so, we become slaves to the temporary. We live our lives in fear of the unknown. We fear the possibility of evil, infidelity, financial ruin, disease and death. The temporary idols of this world become shackles around our hands and feet and imprison us to fear. God has come that we may have hope. God's Word says that in this life we will have trouble (John 16) but He goes on to remind us that He has overcome the world. He overcome death and disease and while he has not promised a painless existence with no 'unfair' suffering,  He has promised to be faithful. 


When all is said and done that alone remains. That alone is enough. 
<><tce