Gallery of His Goodness

Just the other night I spent over an hour scrolling through pictures I’ve taken over the past years.  I’ve made a new folder on my computer and have been transferring pictures into it.  I’ve copied pictures of sunsets and sunrises, of family members and friends, and of tangible answered prayer requests…

I’m really excited about the idea of someday decorating a room in my house with all these pictures, and calling the room:  “The Gallery of His Goodness”.

Over the past few weeks I’ve re-read and read for the first time quite a few books by Robin Jones Gunn.  Her books were a blessing to me when I was a teenager, and they continue to be a blessing to me in my late 20s.  They are easy reads, full of good story lines – but also full of pearls of wisdom.  (Sometimes fictional stories are the perfect way to deliver nuggets of truth….)  I would honestly love to sit down and have tea with Robin.  I’d love to have her as a mentor and a “forever friend”. J 

The idea for my gallery is from Robin’s book called Finally and Forever.  It’s the last book in the Katie Weldon Series, and in it, a woman named Callie is sharing with our fictional friend Katie what she learned while her husband was kidnapped and missing.  Callie went through struggles but came out with treasures of truth on the other side.  Quoted straight from Robin’s book – I hope these paragraphs are as much as an encouragement to you as they were to me:

“I discovered that when God wants to draw us into a place of deeper intimacy in our relationship with him, he undoes everything we previously knew about his ways to show us a different side of himself.  When that happens, you end up confused and afraid because you thought you knew God and knew how he worked in your life…but then you tell the fear to go away…

“And you lean in closer to the Lord.  You listen very closely, and when you don’t hear a single word from him, not a sound, you wait.  But here’s what I learned all this while we were waiting…You don’t wait in silence.  During that stretch of time…I couldn’t sleep, eat, or think.  But I could remember.  And as I recalled all of the things God had done for us in the past, it was like I wasn’t alone in the waiting room of my heart any longer.  I hung every one of those memories like pictures on the wall, and then I would look at each one of them in my mind’s eye and say, ‘Thank you, God.  Thank you.’  I started to praise God instead of question him…

“…what happened was that when I started to praise God and to thank him, I broke through the darkness.  My heart ended up on the other side of the fear.”

“You’re in a waiting room right now…

“Go ahead and cover the walls with memories of all the things God has done, and then walk through the gallery every day and tell him thank you, thank you.”

How blessed we are when we remember God's goodness to us - and what a blessing it would be to have tangible reminders of that goodness!  

Regardless of whether we actually create tangible photo albums or hallway/room galleries or not, I know that we can decorate the waiting room of our hearts with pictures of His goodness.

Walking through such galleries will give us the confidence to rest contentedly in Him – no matter what we go through.

He. Is. Good.