what faithful means.

Growing up, I remember my grandparents, uncles and aunts, and various family members always testifying to God's faithfulness, especially during the holidays, when remembrance was a common thing.  As immigrants to this country in the seventies, they understood what it meant to trust in the Lord for that daily bread for which we pray.  From unsaved children, mothers and sons separated by the Atlantic, bitterness, and life as widows, to reunited families, celebrating citizenship, and opportunities for work,  this generation has earned the right to say that God is faithful.  Sometimes He came through immediately, sometimes following years of persevering prayers, and some things we're still waiting for.

My grandmothers (like many Indian women of their time) were nurses, so they traveled to America as pioneers to seek the jobs available in hospitals at the time.  Staying with their extended family and friends, these women settled into their work and lives in this country, and then they sponsored their husbands and children to follow them across the sea.  It's a life I am close enough to to appreciate the sacrifices, yet far enough away from not to experience the obvious difficulties.

However, in my own life, God has still shown me His faithfulness.  I may not have had such expansive life experiences as that of my grandparents, or even my parents (who came as small children to the United States).  But the God Who is faithful in big things is also faithful in the smaller things.  I have seen His grace, I have tangibly felt His peace, I have tasted His goodness.  He is S T E A D F A S T.  He never changes.  He is the stability, the constancy we seek in our earthly relationships; He is what the unfaithful are not; "God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind.  Has he said, and will he not do it?  Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?" (Numbers 23:19).

This is our God.  And this is what faithful means.

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