The Hearing

“If I have found grace in Thy sight, show me Thy glory.”
Moses’ words to God as he sought to know the way through the desert.

Thank you for the many prayers, fastings and petitions that were heard by our Father on Jan’s behalf this past Thursday.  The hour and a half hearing took place and for that we are grateful.  Our lawyer was exceptional as was Jan’s testimony while the opposing side gave little defense and merely reiterated their position that her care was not their responsibility.

We now wait for Judge MacDougall’s ruling.  By law, he must write his decision within 3 weeks but we feel that because of the medical necessity of the case that he will rule much quicker.

Having grown up with a concept in my Irish Catholic heritage of a place of waiting called limbo, Jan and I are beginning to get a sense as to what living in that place must be like!   We wait now for a ruling without a clear sense of the outcome.  Though we are sure of the rightness of our appeal and sure of the deft and decisive arguments presented by our lawyer,Valerie Eastwood, what was heard by the Judge and what will turn his heart are a mystery.  Our hope is that we will hear within days and not weeks but that is based in the uncomfortable position we wait in… limbo!

The spiritual place of rest continues to be where our hearts are drawn.
Cleland B. McAfee, after two of his nieces died from diphtheria in 1903, wrote these words.

There is a place of quiet rest, near to the heart of God.
A place where sin cannot molest, near to the heart of God.
O Jesus, blest Redeemer,
Sent from the heart of God,
Hold us who wait before Thee
Near to the heart of God.

Limbo, after all, is not a real place merely one of the uncomfortable results of living in a fallen world.  Yet a real place remains open for us “near to the heart of God!”  Another hero in the faith, J. Parker, wrote these words that I have kept within arms reach for more than a decade.

God holds the key of all unknown,
And I am glad;
If other hands should hold the key,
I might be sad.
I cannot read His future plans,
But this I know:
I have the smiling of His face,
And all the refuge of His grace,
While here below.

And so we wait, not in limbo but in that place of rest near the heart of God.  We trust, not in the “horses and chariots” of this world but in the refuge of His grace here below.

Thank you for your continued support and prayers.

Dennis and Jan