'IN HIS HANDS"

"... in His hands." I've had so share words of encouragement along this journey, most including a passage of scripture. Probably the most quoted would be this one: "our days (times) are in His hands." I've spent hours meditating on these words during these weeks in Royal Jubilee. Everyone is believing with us that healing is coming and I have many days of earthly life still to live. This affirmation ("in His hands") is not fatalistic. He is the living, all-powerful, all-loving, all-knowing God. He is sovereign over the universe, all history and last, but not least, over each of our individual lives.
Think of the Sovereign Lord with hands! The biblical writers are led by the Holy Spirit to express the character and work of God in human terms that we might understand who He is and what He does. (The theologians call these anthropomorphisms). His hands are strong, loving, creating, protecting, correcting, directing, healing...the list goes on. And I am in those hands.
I'm so thankful that He is not just a distant, unknowable God. He is my God. To put it in the words of perhaps the most memorable Psalm in the Bible, "The Lord is MY Shepherd."
I'm in His hands! My heart overflows with thanksgiving!
It's understandable that most people think of this truth ("our days are in His hands") with reference to facing some point of vulnerability, such as a potentially fatal illness, and that is appropriate. But my thoughts have moved far beyond that in these days. Perhaps these words can enlarge your thoughts as well.
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It has been 5 weeks since I entered hospital although you haven't heard much from me on this blog in the last week or so. That's because neither I, nor the doctors, know exactly what to say.
There has been another return to the site of the original surgery. More small cancer sites were found and removed. Beyond that, it can't be said with Melanoma that "that's all there is or we got it all". The good news is that at this point the scans examining the rest of my body show no signs of the disease.
And so we have decided that it's time for me to get home, get strong again, and get on with life. It's certainly true that our lives will never be the same again. What mine will look like, time will tell. We are mapping out plans for the first months of 2010. (Participating in the Winter Olympics will not be one one them.) But returning to Africa is on the agenda. And there are invitations for teaching and ministry in Canada which await. Mostly we look forward to renewed fellowship with so many of you good friends. Whatever other changes may come along in the future, I know that I'm a better, bigger person spiritually than before all of this began. God's hands have been at work. God bless.
KEN (AND SHIRLEY)