Guest blogger: Ann Ammar’s “Walking by Faith”

Writer and composer Ann Ammar of Valley Forge, PA, is the third guest blogger who wrote in response to this posted prompting from the book of Psalms: “When I see your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and stars that you set in place—Who are we that you are mindful of us, and a son of man that you care for us? Yet you have made us little less than a god, crowned us with glory and honor.” Psalm 8:4-6

Ann’s reflection and a song, complete with a YouTube video, is below:

Less than a year ago my youngest daughter, then age 14, became suicidal. She had suffered a long and deep depression that began when she was just eleven years old. Her extreme depression seemed to have resulted from a combination of factors: possibly a genetic predisposition, maybe the hormonal changes from puberty mixed with extreme stress brought about by our family’s sudden and unexpected intense trials, some of which included her mother’s diagnosis of breast cancer and being uprooted from her familiar and secure environment when we moved to a foreign country – Israel – and then back again all within a four year period. Her highly sensitive nature felt deeply these traumatic life events and she plummeted into extreme anxiety and an unimaginable deep, dark depression.

Despite good medicine and therapy both in Israel and in America, that terrifying night that all parents can never imagine they would ever personally experience came when our teenage daughter attempted suicide and needed to be rushed by ambulance to the emergency room to save her life.

Oh, a mother’s heart in agony! All the years since the birth of her tender infant  — God’s gift of life — a mother nurtures and loves, prays for and does everything within her power to guard her precious child from any danger. She feels deeply as her own even the pain of her child’s skinned knees! A mother endeavors to show and teach her child how much she is loved both by her family and also by God so that her child can grow up to be happy and secure about herself, her place in the world, and to know confidently she is a beloved child of God who has a special plan for her life…

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

How could this be happening to our child, we wondered? Why have all our many fervent prayers for so long for her healing seemed to have had no effect? Her depression had worsened, not improved. And now things had come to such a dire point in time. Will she live to see tomorrow? Will she ever get better — fully well? Will she find the happiness and peace and purpose that God has for her life?  We were terrified.  We felt as if we were in utter darkness — in a dense fog — within a thick cloud of unknowing what the future held. It was a type of dark night of the soul — of mind and heart.

Yet, I had faith. Yes, I had faith. It was profoundly living. Inside the depth of my being, the Holy Spirit kept His gift, His grace of faith alive, even vibrant, despite the horrifying outward circumstances of our situation. I trusted Jesus. He would not abandon us. Our Lord told us that he would never leave us nor forsake us.  (Deuteronomy 31:8, Hebrews 13:5, Matthew 28:20)

Indeed it was a dark, dark night, but the light of faith in our hearts was still shining. “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1)

Our daughter was treated as an emergency at a local hospital and then moved immediately to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where she received further critical care for two more days until she was transferred to another behavioral health care facility in the area for inpatient hospitalization for almost another week.

During the evening of one of the first nights of my daughter’s hospitalization, I went out alone to take a walk with Jesus under the heavens seeking His consolation and peace as my mother’s heart was unbearably heavy with anguish. In looking up on this summer’s night, I saw only continuous grey skies as there was a pervasive and thick cloud covering over the face of the heavens that evening. I could not see the stars in their affixed places through the dense veil of clouds, but by faith I knew they were there. The gentle light of the moon, too, was diffused by the heavenly canopy of clouds. But by faith I also knew the moon was right above, hidden behind the clouds, just where Our Lord has set it at the foundation of the world. And by faith I trusted that Jesus was right there with me in my own obscure night, His love and peace surrounding me like the clouds blanketing the sky, because He is true to His Word. And in awe and adoration my heart exclaimed:

“When I see your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and stars that you set in place—Who are we that you are mindful of us, and a son of man that you care for us? Yet you have made us little less than a god, crowned us with glory and honor.” Psalm 8:4-6

As we continued our walk together Jesus spoke this song into my heart and His Spirit filled me with His peace. I trusted Him. All would be well. The Lord would fulfill His plans to give my daughter “hope and a future.” She lived and began to recover immediately and has been getting stronger and stronger throughout this year. She will turn sixteen in July.

Walking by Faith
Copyright© 2013, music and lyrics by Ann Ammar
Vocals: Sarah Stong
Piano: Kathy Moser

Grey skies, crickets and fireflies,
Under the clouds tonight;
Walking by faith, not sight.

Warm air, caressing my skin and hair,
Your presence everywhere;
A love so pure and fair.

Even though I cannot see You, I believe.

Night birds, sing their sweet lullabies,
My heart-song then replies;
I know that You’re nearby.

Even though I cannot see You, I believe.

Grey skies, hiding the stars tonight
Cover their twinkling lights
We walk by faith not sight

Dark night, a place of the mind and soul
We feel we’re all alone
Your Word says it’s just not so

Even though I cannot see You, I believe.

Moon light, veiled by a shroud of clouds
Yet, Your love and peace surround
For faith is where You are found

Even though I cannot see You I believe.

Ann Ammar

Ann Ammar, 53, lives in Valley Forge near Philadelphia with her Palestinian husband of 28 years and their two teenage daughters. Ann and her husband met as graduate students in London and then moved together to America where they married in 1985 and began their respective careers. In the height of Ann’s successful career as an international banker in 1994, on a routine business trip to Italy, one of her banking clients unexpectedly took Ann to Assisi. There, in a day filled with mystery and mystical moments sovereignly orchestrated by the Lord to draw Ann from agnosticism to living faith in Him, Ann had her “Road to Damascus” experience. Filled with prevenient grace she was given the gift to hunger with her whole heart, mind and soul to know the God she encountered in Assisi. She followed this Voice of Personal Love that ultimately led her to give her life to Jesus Christ and leave all worldly pursuits, including her high-powered career to follow the Good Shepherd wherever He would lead her.

At first, after her radical conversion, she worshipped the Lord and grew in her new Christian faith with Evangelicals. In 2003, our gracious Lord revealed to Ann the truth of His Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist and she came running towards His Holy Catholic Church. She entered into full communion with the Catholic Faith at the Easter Vigil 2004.

Ann’s family has recently returned to America from Israel where they lived for several years, first in her husband’s Arab village near the Galilee and then in a modern Jewish Israeli town along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Their sudden move to Israel in 2008 fulfilled her husband’s quiet yet deep yearning to return to his homeland to spend time with his aging father after living more than 30 years abroad with Ann in England, Spain and America.

The mysterious and extraordinary events that preceded and precipitated Ann’s family’s unexpected and abrupt relocation to Israel was understood by Ann at the time to be a special call from the Lord for a purpose yet to be revealed. Ann’s discernment of the Good Shepherd’s guiding Hand in His call to come to the Holy Land was soon verified when she met under most extraordinary circumstances the person that Jesus had predestined to be Ann’s partner in a new evangelical writing apostolate, a work for which Jesus had revealed his desire for Ann to do prior to her leaving America for Israel. Ann’s new sister in Christ, Marianne, had been called by Jesus many years before from Holland to settle in Israel where she had been living more than three decades as the only Catholic in a completely Jewish kibbutz, which is located outside Jerusalem. Bonding Ann and Marianne together in deep Christian sisterhood, agape love and friendship, Jesus utilized the unique talents and gifts He had bestowed on each of them for the building up of His Kingdom.

The fruit of this unity is their blog http://walkingwithourlord.wordpress.com/ and their Website http://www.walkingwithourjesus.com/ where Ann’s inspirational faith testimonies, spiritual poems, original songs and lyrics inspired by the Holy Spirit are contained, and Marianne’s excellent technical skills and beautiful graphic design capabilities are displayed.