Marissa Henley

Encouraging weary women to hope in Christ alone

It is Well With My Soul {No Matter What Monday}

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it-is-wellI belted out the words to my favorite hymn, tears flowing freely, as my church family harmonized effortlessly around me. Singing that hymn on that Sunday is one of my most poignant memories of corporate worship.

 

Days earlier, on January 12, 2010, an enormous earthquake rocked the small, impoverished nation of Haiti: a land precious to two families in our church who run schools there, and therefore precious to our entire church family. It was more than an earthquake in a foreign land – it was another symptom of a fallen world, another crack in our broken hearts. And yet, we sang:

“And Lord, haste the day when the faith shall be sight,

The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;

The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,

Even so, it is well with my soul.”

 

How can your soul be well when nothing else is well?

 

Another verse in the same hymn says:

“My sin—oh the bliss of this glorious thought!—

My sin, not in part, but the whole,

Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,

Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord, O my soul!”

 

The Lord redeemed us by nailing our sin to the cross of Christ. Through the Son, the Father met our greatest need—our need to be reconciled to Him. As this world falls apart and our hearts break, we can have peace knowing that the Lord who loves us so deeply will never stop caring for our needs. Because we have peace with God through Christ, it is well with our souls.

 

No matter what we face this week, it is well with our souls . . . even when nothing else is well.

 

P.S. The people of Haiti need our help again in the wake of Hurricane Matthew. To learn more about the work my friends are doing in Haiti, please visit the Hope for LaGonave website. I’d love for you to consider donating to their work—I can vouch for the fact that your funds will be used to thoughtfully care for children in Haiti.

 

(Quotations from the hymn “It is Well With My Soul” by Horatio G. Stafford)

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God Has Prepared You For This {No Matter What Monday}

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A couple months ago, I stared out the window of my home office, sipping coffee and enjoying the early morning quiet of a house filled with my sleeping people. The silence was broken by a sound I interpreted at first to be my children jumping up and down upstairs. But the way the house was shaking, there must have been twenty kids jumping, and that couldn’t be right. The waves of realization came slowly across my slightly-caffeinated brain: an earthquake.

I had no idea where I should be or what I should do. I live in Arkansas, not California! Was I supposed to bring everyone downstairs to a bathroom, like in a tornado? Get everyone out of the house like in a fire? Get under a desk or into a doorway? Thankfully, the earthquake ended by the time I gathered my confused, bleary-eyed family, and we were fine.

After we settled down, I was struck by how unprepared I was for the earthquake. When the unexpected happens, we often find ourselves unprepared. We feel scared, confused, even frantic. Life is happening, and we need to act or respond, but we have no clue what to do.

Ephesians 2:10 promises us that God has equipped us for all that He calls us to do: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

We are His workmanship. He has good works for us to do, which He has prepared beforehand. Fueled by the Holy Spirit, we can walk freely in the work He asks us to do.

If you’re anxious about the tasks your week will bring, you can be sure of this: God has equipped you in every way to tackle the to-do list He’s given you.

Whatever you face this week, God has prepared you for this, because you are His workmanship.

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