God’s Faithfulness! Wow!!!

Day 2704:  TGHF – Thank God He’s Faithful!!! A little Wed. spin on TGIF as we do the last devotional on God’s faithfulness. Tis a bit long, but worth the read!

Scripture:  When I am in Christ, I am a new creation; the old things have passed away – behold, new things have come!  II Corinthians 5:17

Thoughts/questions:  Kim Phuc – don’t recognize the name? Maybe her picture would help you to remember – for those old enough, she is the little girl photographed running naked in Vietnam after being hit by a napalm attack. Her cotton clothes had evaporated from the extreme heat of the napalm. She ran, then lost consciousness. The photographer took pity on her and took her to the hospital where they said she was too far gone to help.

After 14 months in a hospital and 17 surgeries, she tried to lead a normal life and was accepted to medical school, but was taken by the communist forces and manipulated by them in front of foreign correspondence. “I became another kind of victim.” Kim could not find answers in Cao Dai, her Vietnamese religion, as “my heart was exactly like a black coffee cup. I wished I died in that attack . . . I was living with anger, with bitterness, and I saw my life as a burden. I hated my life.” She searched for answers as to the meaning behind her suffering and why she was still alive, “And, thank God, I got all that answered when I was 19.”

Due to her inability to attend school, Kim engrossed herself in the library where she came upon the Bible. “I couldn’t stop reading it.” Her curiosity drove her to church, where “I heard the Gospel explained to me for the first time. The love of God changed my life. I knew that Jesus died on the cross and paid for my sins. So I asked God, ‘Do you forgive me?’”

After reading the Bible, she asked God, “How can I clean everything in my heart if it’s full of coffee?” The answer, she explains, was in letting her cup be poured out every day, “until it became empty and God spilled His love into my cup.”

“Had it not been for the war, I would not value peace.
Had it not been for pain, I would not know the healing power of love.
Had it not been for hatred, I would never have learned to forgive.
Had it not been for imprisonment, I would not value freedom.
Had it not been for living in want, I would not value everything I have.
Had it not been for fear, I would not value peace.”

Once a National Symbol of War, Kim Phuc has become a symbol of forgiveness and God’s faithfulness!

Suggested Prayer:  Thank You Father for Your continued faithfulness to Kim and to me . . .