This week is Christian Life Week at Prairie Bible College, and beginning tomorrow, it is also an Alumni Reunion for those of us whose final year there was in 1961, 1971, 1981, 1991, or 2001. I am in the middle – the Class of ’81.

When I attended, it was called Fall Conference at Prairie Bible Institute. Pictured above is me, age 25, a freshman, and very recently widowed. My first husband, Bob, had died eight weeks earlier, in July.

Prairie was a 52-hour train ride from my hometown near Toronto, Ontario. After watching at my young husband’s bedside in the hospital for a year and a half, I was suddenly thrust into dorm life at Prairie, surrounded by a throng of fellow students, many of whom were fresh out of high school. I loved my new life, but I knew I would likely need wise counsel at some point, since it was so soon after losing my beloved.

Two things happened during my early weeks at Prairie that sent me fleeing to the Dean’s office for counsel.  

The first was a missionary couple who spoke in chapel, telling us about their middle son who had broken his neck in a car accident several months earlier. They had all but despaired of his life, or at least his ability to walk again. But people began praying for the young man in churches all across Canada and the U.S. Not only was he able to walk again, but he could run and play tennis.

That was hard for me. For the first time since Bob’s death, the doubts crept in, and taunted me. Why did God heal their son, while my husband languished for so long, and then died?

The second was another missionary, who preached on the story of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath, in 1 Kings 17:8-16. His intended emphasis was the faith and obedience of the woman, and the miracle the Lord performed as a result. But all I heard was the missionary’s oft-repeated words, “God is looking for a widow woman today! God is looking for a widow woman today!” It was all I could do not to leave my seat and run from the building.

The moment chapel was over, I fled to the Dean of Women. I knew she would understand. She had lost her younger brother in a small plane crash two years earlier. She understood all right, and she did not coddle me. She let me talk, then asked me pointedly, “Willena, where is your focus? Is it on your grief? Or is it on the Lord Jesus Christ?”

She set me on a path of memorizing whole psalms and other passages of scripture, to help me get my focus on Christ, where it belonged. Memorizing and meditation on the scriptures gave me God’s Word, the only thing that had the power to overcome those troublesome doubts and fears that kept coming in.

Psalm 77 is one passage she had me memorize. It’s a psalm of Asaph. In the first half of the psalm, he is wallowing in self-pity and insomnia. In verse 2, he says, “My soul refused to be comforted.” Verse 10 is a pivotal point.

“And I said, ‘This is my anguish;

But I will remember the years of the right hand

of the Most High.’”

And in the rest of the psalm, he does just that. It’s an amazing about-face, and you can just see the tension and pain slipping away from him.

We all face a lot of turmoil in these uncertain days, and we may find ourselves at times where the psalmist was in the first half of Psalm 77. The answer is the same for us as for him. “But I will remember…” I choose to remember what the Lord has done, to His children all through the pages of the Bible, in the lives of godly men and women through the centuries since then, and in my own life through the years.

We have a choice. Will we refuse to be comforted? Or will we choose to remember His goodness?

Our God is an awesome God, and let’s not forget it. Let’s remember on His love, His sovereignty, His power on behalf of His children. He has not forsaken us, and He never will. Let’s keep our eyes focused on Him, and look to Him for direction on our daily walk.