Gettin the Glory

My great grandmother was fond of reminding me that it never mattered who got the credit for something as long as God gets the glory. It was one of my earliest lessons in living all of life as unto the Lord.
This past week, my friend Jeremy and his family have been on quite the roller coaster as he battled a life-threatening bacterial infection. To read their story, go here. Jeremy's on his way home from the hospital now. He's been cleared by most of his doctors, and just a week after being admitted with a 108 degree temperature, he is going home to continue his recovery in familiar surroundings. The fact that he is going home at all is testimony of God's power over all things.
I've been thinking about and praying for Jeremy and Jodi a lot lately. Watching their lives lived out in this trial, wondering how such a young family can endure so many difficulties, - did I mention their house flooded a couple of months ago and is in the process of being refloored and repainted? - and thinking about how God works in and through it all, what purpose He has for them in these things.
Someone told me once that jewlers place diamonds against black cloths in order to display their brilliance most radiantly. In Jeremy and Jodi's life, these trials have been a black cloth, but the brilliant radiance of Jesus Christ at work in them and through them has shone all the more brightly against this backdrop. Not just their family, friends, and church, or even my family, friends, and church, but also doctors and nurses and specialists, and medical personnel around the country are hearing the story of this man and the things he's survived, and whenever the story is told, Jeremy and Jodi offer one explantion. God is BIG. He's so BIG. He is being made famous through their insistance that He get the credit AND the glory.
John chapter 9 tells the story of a man who was blind from birth, and the religious rulers of the day ask Jesus if the man's blindness was caused by his sin or the sin of his parents. In verse 3 Jesus answers and says, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life." What a beautiful display Jeremy and Jodi are of the glory of God at work.