I was hanging out with my family during Thanksgiving and we started talking about music because we happened to notice a list of songs that my cousin wished to acquire. One of them was Aaron Shust’s “My Hope Is In You”. We all came to the consensus that we really liked this song and it turns out that we were all first introduced to Aaron Shust through his other song, “My Savior My God” (which is also a great song). Anyway, I was youtubing “My Hope Is In You” when I noticed a few interviews he gave to various radio stations. I was curious so I decided to take a listen to what he had to say. In one of the interviews he spoke about his son Nicky and the hard time his family went through when they discovered that Nicky was sick. The name of the disease was really long so I don’t remember the name but it’s a fairly new disease that has only been discovered/researched over the past 10 years. Needless to say, there is no cure for it. The doctors couldn’t really do anything for Nicky other than give him steroids for the rest of his life to help him manage the pain. By God’s grace, Nicky was completely healed and is now a healthy boy. Granted, this is an awesome story of God’s grace and power but what really touched my heart came at the end of the interview when Shust said he prayed, “Lord, why did it take my boy being at death’s door for me to fall on my face before you? Forgive me and please allow me to continue to fall on my face before you,” (this isn’t an exact quote). This just totally blew me away—not because it was something that I hadn’t heard before but because God always seems to have a funny way of bringing up lessons that I’ve put on the back shelf of my mind to the surface again. It’s so easy to get distracted by life and many times it’s too easy to just whisper a quick prayer and be on my way. Not to say that there’s anything wrong with quick prayers but when they take the place of spending actual, quality time with the Lord then there’s something wrong with my priorities. I need to put the stresses of my job, family, wedding planning, and whatever else to the side and do as Mary did—devote myself to sit at Jesus’ feet. Mary chose what was better while Martha replaced what was better with something that was just good (Luke 10:38-42). So now that Thanksgiving has come and gone and everyone is getting into the hustle and bustle that the Christmas season always brings, I pray that I won’t be distracted by the lists, lights, glitter, and shopping and that instead, I would choose to be devoted first and foremost because that is where I'll find my hope.
