That eve­ning I sat slum­ped on the ed­ge of my bed. I did not have the ener­gy to cry, but the te­ars on my cheeks kept flo­wing on their own. I was thin­king about my own and my hus­band’s he­alth. I was won­de­ring if our child­ren would get enough joy and sup­port. I was wor­ried about our mort­ga­ge, the price of the con­fir­ma­ti­on camp, the high cost of the up­co­ming opis­to ye­ar, the num­ber of me­di­cal ap­point­ments. All things that pi­led up to make a bur­den. I tried to cal­cu­la­te the equ­a­ti­on of sick­ness be­ne­fits and home care al­lo­wan­ce, un­til I just could not go on any more. I sta­red ahe­ad with un­see­ing ey­es and pra­yed.

Then I saw there was a new mes­sa­ge on my phone. I clic­ked it open and slow­ly be­gan to de­cip­her the stream of words. At first the words see­med in­comp­re­hen­sib­le, but then I be­gan to un­ders­tand. It was as if a friend had ex­ten­ded her hand, pul­led me close to her­self, and gent­ly stro­ked my shoul­der. She as­ked me if she could pay for our child’s con­fir­ma­ti­on camp.

The sun sud­den­ly see­med to shine bright­ly. My friend and I tal­ked about life. We es­pe­ci­al­ly tal­ked about how the He­a­ven­ly Fat­her lo­ves us through ot­her pe­op­le. And car­ries us along even when we do not un­ders­tand it. We tal­ked about how I could help so­me­o­ne el­se in the fu­tu­re. When our si­tu­a­ti­on imp­ro­ves, I can help so­me­o­ne el­se, ex­tend my hand to that ot­her per­son.

I have of­ten thought about that mo­ment, mar­ve­ling about the an­gels sent by the He­a­ven­ly Fat­her to help us on the way. Those were al­so my thoughts when I was lis­te­ning to the re­qu­ests for in­ter­ces­so­ry pra­yers at the Sum­mer Ser­vi­ces. I pra­yed along with the ot­hers, thin­king about the so­lid and se­cu­re help that we have. God knows us through to our he­arts. He car­ries our pains, knows our tem­po­ral wor­ries, and gi­ves us es­corts on the way. It is safe to rely on His sup­port.

I think about you with love, my dear friend. I pray and be­lie­ve that God will pay you back the love you sho­wed to us. I be­lie­ve that God Him­self awa­ke­ned that love in you.

I al­so think about you who may be un­der­going a si­mi­lar pain­ful life si­tu­a­ti­on. This road is not al­wa­ys ea­sy to tra­vel. There are days when ans­wers are hard to find. There are days when you feel comp­le­te­ly dep­le­ted of strength, and not even God seems to hear you. But you can trust that God will car­ry His child­ren at all ti­mes. Even when we do not no­ti­ce it. Even when we are too ex­haus­ted to pray for help. Es­pe­ci­al­ly then.

When we came home af­ter ha­ving gat­he­red for on­li­ne Sum­mer Ser­vi­ces at our child­ren’s grand­pa­rents, we found a pac­ket of cof­fee out­si­de our door. We do not know where it had come from, but that pac­ket al­so had a mes­sa­ge. It told us that we are not alo­ne. We are being re­mem­be­red even to­day.

Text: An­ne Lind­fors

Trans­la­ti­on: Sirk­ka-Lii­sa Lei­no­nen

You will find the ori­gi­nal blog post here.