God Cares For You

 Dear Friends,

Hello and Merry Christmas from Dave, Mary, and me!!  I hope this letter finds you and your family well.  It is great that Christmas is arriving and that the end of the year is near.

This is a good time for me to remind you that you are very important to me and that my mind often turns to you.  Some of you are family, some are friends, and some of you have been personally impacted by the work that you began at Grace Counseling Ministries.  And even though it is not necessarily “professional” to say that I care, I am going to choose to go beyond what is usual “professional ethics” to say that I do care for you.  I care for where the Lord is leading you as you read this letter right now, for the work that the Lord is doing in your life, even if you are unaware of it.

While saying this, I am showing you my heart.  And in my heart is a lot of compassion for you.  God has shown me that He cares for you in an intimate way.  He knows the number of hairs on your head, and He was there when you were being formed in your mother’s womb (Psalm 139).  Your birth was not an accident (statistically, you had at least a 1 in 8 billion chance to be born) and, because of this, He has a wonderfully divine plan for your life.  Nothing goes beyond His watchful eye—so much so, that not a single thing happens in your life that He doesn’t allow for eventual good and for His glory (Romans 8:28).  Everything that happens to you, and all the places you are going are there for His reason.  The people He has placed in your life are there because He has put them there for you to love.

He loves you and He can be trusted. Just like the poem “Footprints” says, even when you are unaware, He is involved in the most intimate details of your life. Every moment He is with you and holding you.

During this Christmas season and any season for that matter, I hope that you are reminded, personally, that God cares so much about you and that He became one of us (John 3:16) so that each of us can choose to be with Him.  Read God’s Word, listen to the Holy Spirit speaking to you in that “still small voice,” love yourself through “God’s glasses,” fill your heart with His love, remember that I care for you, and give while you still have the breath to make a difference in the people’s lives around you.

And remember, when times get tough, and people treat you unfairly, what Joseph said to his brothers who sold him into slavery in Genesis 50:20, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good…” God is committed all the way to the end into making you to be the beautiful person He always intended you to be (Philippians 1:6).

                                                    Compassionately,

                                                    Paul J. Staup, Ed.S.