Grace

My husband and I have had THE COLD (no matter where you live, you know what I'm talking about) since mid-January, no kidding. He got it first. I held off for about a week and half, thought I had escaped its grasp, and then got IT. This thing is most probably being doled out by Satan himself. Anyway, we took antibiotics, boxes and boxes of Theraflu, and more or less got over it. We thought. But no, IT'S back. According to the doctor today, it actually never left, just lulled us into a false sense of relief thinking we were just "feeling the last little vestiges." So today we both got prescriptions for more antibiotics, antihistimines, and narcotic-laced cough medicines. Goody. But here's the thing. There was a giant gift from God in the middle of this return of the cold.

For anyone who accidentally stumbled onto this site and doesn't know me, I'll let you know that I'm a singer. So is my husband. It's how we both make our living. All of it. We don't have a day job, or any other business. Our business is entertainment. So this accursed cold has been a double nightmare. We sing at a restaurant during the week and do cabaret dinner shows on the weekends. People buy tickets. Reservations are made. The show must go on. Enter THE COLD. So without belaboring the story, we have managed to get through it. But last weekend the second round of this disease was coming on me pretty good. It was making me cough a lot, and thus irritating the heck out of my throat, making my voice catch and break at unscheduled intervals. Like in the middle of a dramatic ballad. I was suffering through this at our restaurant job during the week. Now here comes the weekend with two important dinner shows to do. Actual dim-the-lights, curtain-up, ta-da-we're-on kind of shows. I was beginning to feel panicky. Then a story from the Bible (2 Corinthians) came into my head and wouldn't leave. It's when the apostle Paul asked God to take away his affliction. (There are theories about what the affliction was, but whatever it was, it was bad enough for Paul to ask God to take it away at least three times.) God's answer was "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." These words of God stuck with me. So I tossed aside my panic, and just had faith in this "grace" of God's. I didn't desperately pray to be miraculously healed by tonight, instead I just gave my affliction to God and trusted that His grace would be sufficient for me, and that His power would be made perfect in my weakness. The key word here is Trust. And you guessed it, I sang my little heart out with nary a wayward note or squawk. I was still weak, and I still had the cold, and in the morning I still coughed and hacked and felt miserable. And that second night I got on the stage again and trusted again and sang like a bird. Again. So what happened is, the affliction was still there, but it was suspended for an hour and half, two nights in row. By the Grace of God. Truly His power was made perfect in my weakness. So I'm just letting everyone know about it. I'm so grateful, I wanted to publish my gratitude. God is so faithful, I am humbled, because I know I don't deserve it. But that's the point. No one deserves it. And that's the gift. God is good. We are not. We can have faith, not because we're good, but because He is.