Be still, and cling to Him.

Being the mother of 10, 8 and 6 year old girls, Jessica Mest knows a thing or two about raising young children. She always played school as a little girl. One year for Christmas she asked for an overhead projector. Her teachers would give her transparencies. Her students were often stuffed animals, and occasionally her two younger brothers. Then the unthinkable happened, when she was just 7 years old her father passed away. He was 32.

He was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver and Hepatitis, having had an addictive past. Her parents never really attended church, but whenever they would go, Jessica loved it. Her mother would remarry and occasionally they would go to church. Often when services ended, Jessica would be asking whoever she could to give her a ride back to church next week.

Having been saved at the age of 8, she felt God was very real to her. She routinely helped with the bus route bringing kids to church who didn’t have a ride. She would eventually ride the bus route herself. Later her parents would credit her faithfulness with helping them see their need for God.

She had to mature quickly as a little girl after her father passed away. In the following years, her family became a core, faithful family in a Bible believing church. While in college her step father went in for a routine surgery and they nicked an artery. Surely she thought, she wouldn’t lose two fathers. He would pass away a week later.

She recounts this to me with tears welling up in her eyes. She says God is good and His grace is sufficient, God gives and he takes away. Her step father passed away in February. In March that year, she would meet her now husband for the first time. In May he would come back to college just to talk with her. They would date in August, got engaged in November, and married that next June. That was 13 years ago.

She remembers singing a song in chapel one day titled The Secret Place not long after her step father passed. She begins to hold back tears again. She says losing a dad, gaining a husband – God’s timing is perfect.

What would she say to someone struggling in such deep trials? Be still, and cling to Him.