Faithful

Five words.

Just five words,

singing their way through my mind for days now.

Footfall after footfall up the hills of running.

Driving the back roads on the way to the Air Base.

In my first waking moments as I reach for the light.

As I wrestle rest for the body from the mind that won't sleep.

And I fight off FEAR of all I have said yes to.

       

Faithful.  Forever He is Faithful.

I had just dressed when I heard repairmen in my stairwell, my landlord buzzing the bell to enter in to the hollow, empty shell of our home.  And gratefully, my husband was still home to greet them and take them to the huge tanks of oil that have heated our home these last two years.  Tanks that had groaned last February from emptiness and balked at feeding anything else to the furnace except fumes.  

How could we have known we had starved the fire out?

The meter still read half full.

We had been told most people fill the tanks annually.

We had been proud of our frugality, all those cold days heating only the rooms we needed.  And we thought with only a few months of a second winter left, with a tank half full, we would only need to fill it once while here in Germany.

The meter was wrong.

The furnace was almost ruined.

We had run out of oil.

We have had no community here.

We have been obedient to God

 and have worshipped at home.

We don't understand.

We have no church home.

And we answer your query and our own

with just five words.

We are obedient to God.

We don't understand.

We have prayed,

sung hymns,

broken bread,

and eaten His word.

We have worshipped.

But we have no meter to measure our oil.

And community is so much a part of filling up.

We have had such a hunger for the

Body of Christ

that our souls ache from hunger.

We taste fumes on our tongues.

We filled the tanks in February.  We put 2000 liters of oil in, as we were told the tanks had been filled to when we moved in.  And today, days before we return to our native land, a new and different kind of meter replaced the broken one.  It was in community, one with a different language than ours, we were told our tanks were still not full.  Fear snatched at my peace at the thought of unexpected thousands to pay for fuel we did not use.  

Gratefully we have a German-national liaison.  

He saw us right away.

He spoke with the landlord on our behalf.

He resolved what we could not,

and we walked away with no more debt.

Faithful.  Forever He is Faithful.

It has been impossible to read the face of the meter, to determine just how filled we are, or even if the meter is working.  Our souls ache have been better gauges, having been filled and emptied, filled and emptied.

We are grateful that we have a Liaison who has spoken on our behalf.  He has resolved what we could not.  And we are leaving the costs of these past two years paid.

We leave Germany debt-free.  Thank you, O Lord, that you are faithful indeed.

For you know that it was not with perishable things you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.  1 Peter 1:18-19

Faithful.  Forever He is Faithful, Favored One.

Love to you.