O Lord…You know me.  Psa. 139:1

God, I understand that You are a Parent, a perfect one.  You are unlike earthly parents who try to make the best decisions for their children, but may not always succeed because they cannot truly understand every feeling and thought of the child.  There is a limit to the earthly parent/child intimacy.

But You, O Perfect Parent, live in me.  Not only do You choose the perfect path for my life, but when I am in pain, You are in me, and You experience it with me.  You feel my suffering and share it with me, so that You truly and completely understand my every thought and feeling.  You understand me and my pain.  And You therefore offer perfect comfort and strength to carry me through.

So precious to me is Your sharing my body, my soul, my life, my pain, and my joy.  Most intimate Friend, Parent, and Lover, I cherish Your Presence in me.  Thank You.

The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.   Deut. 33:27

Thank You God that the worst of our ordeal seems to have passed.  It is still difficult, but at least some things have stabilized, creating a certain amount of relief and rest.  Looking back, I realize that You have carried me intimately, step by step, through the whole thing, and are even still carrying me.  It reminds me of the Footprints poem, where the author was wondering where You were during some of the hardest times in his life and found that he had been carried.

But I know where You were!  You have promised never to leave me, and You were with me every minute.   I could not have survived it outside of Your arms, and certainly would not have experienced the rest, peace, comfort, energy, and intimacy that have resulted from living in Your arms.

Thank You, my Love, for carrying me.

Stop doubting and believe.  John 20:27

I have been doubting lately how God speaks and interacts with me.  Sometimes I have been wrong about what I think He has said.  Sometimes others doubt what I say and it had made me gun shy with God.  But the other night He asked me, “Why are you doubting Me?”  Just because others doubt doesn’t mean that I have to.

I realized that when I believe, He can and does interact with me in lots of different ways.  I hear and feel and see Him a lot.  I also realize that in this process, sometimes I also get it wrong.  But at least I am experiencing genuine interaction with Him – worth more than gold.  But when I doubt, then I experience very little of Him, because I don’t believe anything.  So I choose to ignore the doubts and fears and instead to believe. 

Help me God to believe, to receive your interactions, and to respond to You.  Help me to see Your face and to hear Your voice.  Help me to know You and to obey Your will.  Make that my greatest desire.  I love You, Precious Jesus.  In Your Name, amen.

(I have been so busy with my new job and with managing my family without my husband as he is away for his new job that I have not had much time to write in my blog.  I have been asking God if He wants me to continue writing and have realized that maybe I just need to write whatever He teaches me, not trying so hard to perfect it.  So here is the imperfect version of what He taught me today! :)

…as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you.  Isa. 62:5

Lately I have been feeling negative about all the changes in our life, like everything is wrong.  But this morning at work, unexpectedly, God impressed upon my heart optimism.  Suddenly, I felt excited about life again!  I felt joy and enthusiasm.  After He does that everything seems better.  I feel more confident and friendly.  I feel approved of by Him and do not worry as much about receiving other’s approval.  I feel at peace and my anxieties are calmed.  Then I am relaxed as I work.  All of life is better when He gives me just a little glimpse through His eyes.  Thank You, Sweet God.

Then this afternoon, He gave me the above Isa. 62 verse about being His bride and how He rejoices over us.  Isn’t that awesome??  God rejoices over us!  When I am again reminded of how deeply and intimately He loves me, even as a bride, and when that aspect of our relationship is restored and active again, all is well.  All else pales in comparison.  All else is less important than the overwhelming fact that the God of the Universe is intimately in love with me.

The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them; He delivers them from all their troubles.  The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.  Psa. 34:17-18

During this time, a lot of things are hard with jobs, finances, and my husband being gone all the time.  I vacillate between trusting and doubting God.  I will be confident in Him, sure that He is working everything out for our good, and then some new problem will arise, and my fragile trust crumbles.

After a few days of doubting God and His goodness, I am miserable.  I can’t seem to get myself out of this state until I remember that I can ask God for help.  I can ask Him to make me want His will, to make me enjoy it.  I ask Him to help me love Him and to trust Him.  I ask Him to help me want to please Him and to make it my heart’s desire.

Then I will go about my day and, amazingly realize that my attitude has changed.  I am feeling content and at peace.  Suddenly the thing that was so upsetting to me does not seem to bother me so much any more.  I can enjoy God, and I want to please Him again.

Thank You God that we can ask You for whatever we are lacking, and You willingly provide what we need to follow You and to even to enjoy it.  Thank You that you are so patient, understanding, and forgiving when we doubt.  And thank You that You provide a way for us to be rescued out and at peace again.  We are in love with You and in awe of You, Amazing God.  You are worthy of all our worship.  In Jesus name, Amen.

The Lord replied, ‘My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.’  Ex. 33:14

Since I’ve begun my job, I’ve found that it is tolerable.  In fact, I’ll tell you a secret.  I’ll even admit that I was actually looking forward to coming to work this morning! lol  How did this happen??  It blows my mind, considering that I was once totally opposed to going back to work.

Not only that, but I find this strange sense of calm, peace, and contentment.  One of the things I was really concerned about was not having as much time alone with God.  But I’ve found that He has given me this steady sense of His presence with me, even at my job of looking at car VIN #’s and stock #’s all day.  Even with no Christian music playing.  Even without talking about Him all day.  He has given me this continual sense that He is here.  He is with me through all parts of my day – even during my secular work.

And this has resulted in a constant sense of peace and contentment – in my job and in His constant presence.  Amazing the miracles He can do!

Thank You God that You can do what I thought was impossible.  You can make me find joy and peace and contentment in the very things I was once so opposed to before.  Once again, I stand in awe of what you can do in me.  I love You Jesus.  Amen.

The Lord your God is with you, He is mighty to save…He will quiet you with His love…  Zeph. 3:17

But those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.  Isa. 40:31

I started my new job last Tuesday.  As much as I was fighting God on it for so long, it has turned out not to be as bad as I expected!  I realize this is why God says not to worry, because what we imagine is often much worse than it turns out to be in reality.  Then we have “lived” through this worse reality over and over in our minds that God never even intended for us.  It would have been better for me just to trust that He has good planned for me!

My coworkers turned out to be very nice.  I’ve found that what I’m doing actually fits my skills pretty well so I am even half enjoying the job.  And what God has taught me before about working in His strength with little things, like chores around the house, is being applied here too.  He is strengthening and empowering me to do this new job.  I don’t feel nearly as tired as I would expect when starting a new job.  In fact, I even find joy and satisfaction in doing it, His good, pleasing, and perfect will for me.

 …His good, pleasing and perfect will.  Rom. 12:2

We are doing the study, Warrior Chicks by Holly Wagner at my church.  The author wrote about a time when she dealt with cancer and God had provided for her just what she needed during a moment of despair.  This reminded me of what I’ve been through lately.  The last six months have been very hard.  My husband has lost his job and is training to be a truck driver.  He is gone for weeks at a time and is not making much money.

I am left at home to fill in all the gaps that he has left behind.  It has been difficult, and there are moments when I have been overwhelmed and at the end of my rope, with no husband beside me to provide a shoulder to cry on.

One Sunday at our church, I was having one of my bad days.  I was debating whether I’d sign up for this Bible study, unsure if I had time to do it or even if I could afford it.  I finally broke down into tears…all over a sweet lady at church!  She gave me a big hug and offered to pay my fee for the Bible study.  Then the Bible study teacher gave me a hug and asked if I wanted to help facilitate.  It meant so much to me that these ladies cared enough about me to share my pain.  And, as if that weren’t enough, someone made sure that I had a whole bowlful of goodies to take home after the bake sale we had for the women’s ministry that Sunday.  And later I heard that at least three other people were willing to pay my fee for the study as well.

These things may seem little, but they meant so much to me.  They were just what I needed at just the right time to reassure me that God cares about me and loves me.  They are little tokens of His affection.

And so I find that even though my husband is gone much of the time, God is providing just what I need through the other people around me.  I am blessed to belong to my church whose members listen to God and care for others who are struggling.  I am finding that through God’s loving care, I really am never alone.

“The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.”  Job 1:21

My husband, Dave, had started training to be a truck driver four weeks ago and finally got to come home last Thursday!  He’s home for a week and then will be gone for another four to six weeks.  It seems like things have gone from bad to worse lately.  A year ago, Dave had his own business, working out of our home.  We were comfortable with the amount of money we were making.  I did not have to work and had plenty of time to seek God and write.  Dave was home all the time, and the girls and I got to spend lots of time with him.  He helped me with the chores, with the kids, with my emotional stability (lol), with everything.  And now he is gone most the time.

The company that he is driving for does not pay well and treats their employees pretty badly.  It seems that they are happier to continually hire and train new drivers than they are to keep the ones they’ve already got.  And even though I fought it tooth and nail, I am starting a part-time job next week.  I was talking with Dave, asking him why things seem to have gone so badly.  How could God have let things take such a bad turn in so many different areas? 

And then God reminded me of Job.  He had a very blessed life, and then He lost it all, his children, his servants, and his animals.  And then he became sick.  (Wow, I’m starting to appreciate that my trials aren’t that bad!)  Satan had insinuated that Job only loved God for the good things He had given him.   So God allowed satan to take these things away, within limits, and Job proved God right.  Job continued to trust Him throughout this whole ordeal.

I feel like Job.  We had life just the way we wanted it before.  We were content with our money, our job, out time together.  And now much of it has been taken away, and things are so hard from many different angles.  And I believe the point is to prove that we love God, not for the good things He gives us, but just for God, Himself.  Will we still love and adore Him when things aren’t as good as they used to be?  Is our love based on what He can give us?  Or is it just based on who He is?

He is still our precious, perfect, beautiful, GOOD God, and I do love Him, even when everything seems to be going wrong.  God is allowing us to prove this fact to ourselves, and to all of heaven and earth who are watching.  And my glimmer of hope is that at the end of the story of Job, when Job’s testing was over, God restored everything that he had, even twice what he had before.  But no matter how our story ends, God is good, and He loves us.  His current plan for us is a perfect, loving plan. So we can rest in that fact of who He is, and we can kneel before Him in awe and reverence and adoration and say, “We submit to Your will because we trust You, precious Father.  We love You, Jesus.  Amen.”

“The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the first…”  Job 42:12

We started a new women’s Bible study at our church about the book, Warrior Chicks, by Holly Wagner.  This is what I wrote for it:

Mary…sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what He said.  But Martha was distracted by all the preparations…“Lord, don’t You care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself?  Tell her to help me!”  “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed.  Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”  Luke 10:39-42

Before we can focus on our battles, we must first focus on God.  In the story of Mary and Martha, Martha had set out to conquer her job without first spending time in the presence of Jesus.  As a result, she was all out of sorts and unhappy at her post.  But Mary sat at Jesus’ feet, listening to Him, resting in His presence, and enjoying Him.  And Jesus defended her by saying that she had made the better choice and that it would not be taken from her. 

As we sit in God’s presence, praying, reading the Bible, and just being quiet before Him,  He shows us what our battles are and how He wants us to proceed.  As we gaze on His loving face, we begin to see who He is and how deeply He loves us.  We are captivated by Him, and we start to become like Him.  Soon His desires become our desires.  We want to please and obey Him because we love Him.  This empowers us to fight our battles to the end, and we become passionate warriors of God’s heart. 

Now, we are ready to go out and fight for Him, with Him, having been prepared by Him as we rest in the presence of our gentle, loving Warrior King. 

He testified concerning him: ‘I have found David son of Jesse a man after My own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.’  Acts 13:22

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.  Ps. 73:26