God Often Supplies Our Need from Places and in Ways We Would Never Consider

Since the power was out and church services were canceled, I have been thinking about how God has worked in my life since my dear wife Susan died two years ago. Her absence has brought great pain to my life. So, I am posting this as a word of testimony and praise. 

Percy Sledge recorded his R&B hit, When A Man Loves A Woman in 1966 the same year Susan and I married. In 2017 Sissel recorded a version that captures my feelings. I urge you to give it a listen. Better yet do it with the one you love.

When a Man Loves A Woman isn’t just about the intoxicating, all-consuming power of love though it is certainly that. Love is the most basic need of all. The desire to want and feel wanted . . . loved is a universal need put in the soul of man by God. Only God’s love and love for God can fill that need perfectly. But a man and a woman created in the image and after the nature of God has a built-in desire to be loved and to be loved deeply. This song expresses something of that.

But When a Man Loves a Woman also warns us to know what we’re getting ourselves into when we love . . . especially when we love with the love of God. The song positively beams with emotion and celebrates just how far gone we can get in our beloved. It also acknowledges the high stakes of the situation. There is nothing to compare in this world with the feeling of deeply held, intensely felt and longtime love. Granted, separation of any kind and especially death may be the end of many things in this world . . . but it certainly is not the end . . . but, at the time, it sure feels like it. So, when the earthly love of our life is no longer present the inward pain is almost unbearable.

Shifting gears just a little. I am a fortunate, no, I am a blessed man to have had a wife who possessed an uncanny ability to put people at ease. I cite one example of what I mean. Several years ago, I was a member of a panel discussing and answering questions about the advantages of having preferred suppliers and how to obtain cooperative funding & support from them. Prior to going to that panel Susan and I had been visiting with the CEO of a major travel industry “Back of the Office” company. 

As the three of us sat in the lobby of the hotel a runner came to get me for my panel. Susan started to go with me when our friend said, “Susan, why don’t you stay here while he does his thing. You’ve heard all that stuff before.” He was right and she took advantage of the opportunity to skip a meeting. Long story short, I finished my presentation and Q&A session and rejoined them where I left them in the hotel lobby. 

I said all that to provide a context for what my friend said as we left to get some lunch. I paraphrase now but what he essentially said to me was, “You have quiet the treasure in your wife.” I wisely and readily agreed as Susan was there and would hear how I would respond. He then continued, “What I mean is she listens so well, I found myself telling her things that I would never say to anyone else. I’m glad you let her stay and visit.” I responded, “I know, she does that to me too.” 

Now, fast forward to the present. I, like my friend, do not share very many personal thoughts and feelings with other people easily and certainly not on a regular basis. In fact, Susan has been my only human real confidant since before we married . . . but now she is gone. Not to sound too mystical, I still consult with her, but she rarely answers . . . . although sometimes somehow talking with her it seems like she does. 

I simply must interject here; Our God is an awesome God . . . and He knows and supplies our every need. I stand amazed at how He does it. As I said earlier, So, when the earthly love of our life is no longer present the inward pain is almost unbearable. Nothing seems to help. Then God . . . does something surprising . . . at least in my loss experience He did.

In my case, the Lord reached back into my past and pulled into my present someone with whom prior to then I doubt that I had spoken a dozen or so words over my entire life. A person who, like my friend, said of Susan, “I found myself telling her things I would never say to another living person.”  This in my mind borders on the miraculous! Do you realize the pieces God had to move to make that happen? Some of you might have been among the pieces He moved. God works and He is working all over the place.

I suppose the lesson in this is that sometimes God supplies our need from places we would never look. Israel received water from a rock and in my case, he brought an obscure part of my past into my present and is meeting my need. I see my experience as no less a miracle than Israel being refreshed with water from a rock. I speak here of spiritual things. There is a way that seems right to our way of thinking, but God knows the way through the wilderness we travel far better than do we.