the ayars affairs: Grace, Peace, Mercy

We have made it safely from Cap-Haitian to the big city of Port-au-Prince... Lily and Sofia happily at home with Grandpa. We are staying at a small hotel near the airport, and will head to the embassy at 6:30 tomorrow morning for Ben’s 8 o’clock appointment, our taxi contact noting that Monday morning traffic between here and there is horrific. We have so much paperwork and copies and tax receipts and so many applications filled out that I can’t imagine us being any more prepared. Thank you for your prayers for everything to go smoothly and we hope to be on a plane by noon back home.

I was feeling a bit anxious about our trip, especially during a more politically unstable time, but the Lord has met me in several ways. First, Dave reminded me Wednesday that our safety isn’t anywhere near as much concern to the Lord as is that we are poured out for his glory, and so instead of obsessing and praying over our safety, I have been praying that we might be used by him.

Also, though when Haiti is in the news we often remind people that we are much safer in Cap-Haitian than what they are seeing, and that things are much calmer than in Port-au-Prince, the Lord reminded me yesterday that we are not safe because of which city we live in but we are safe in the middle of His hand. If He is with us, and He is, then what can man do to me?

Finally, I was blessed with peace on the tiny, turbulent plane this afternoon… Ben’s first flight at only three weeks. I was reading on in my Bible readings, today in second John, and the promise was that grace, mercy and peace will be with us through God the Father and through Jesus Christ. If grace, mercy, and peace are what the Father gives us, then those are to be the things that we are giving to others as His vessels. I am to be an agent of grace, mercy, and peace in the world of my day-to-day, able to give those things because God my Father gives them freely to me. Just that realization erased what was left of my own turbulence.

He has with my children, on opposite ends of the island, He is with us, and I can still hold firmly and share freely His grace, mercy, and peace.