Thanksgiving on Thursday...

"You will keep (her) in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because (she) trusts in you.."

 

 

Life with it's trials will come...

 

>Babies go Home to Jesus before their parents ever get to know them.

>A new mama sits carefully at home with a blood clot in her lung while her baby struggles to adjust to the sudden change from nursing to a bottle and formula.

>Hopes and long time dreams are crushed into powder at our feet and we wonder at the deep darkness that would threaten to suck us into a pool of disappointment.

>A father dies of complications after by-pass surgery, not expecting when he went to the Dr. for a check-up that he would never wake up and would leave his wife and children behind suddenly.

>Longtime friends refuse to go forward in Jesus, hanging on to old hurts and bitterness, leaving their friends standing alone on a windy hill longing for them to come along to new heights along the narrow Way to Glory.

>Children wander, drawn away by their own lusts and love of the things that appeal to human hearts, leaving parents broken hearted and pleading for Jesus to draw their children to Himself.

>A generation 'forgets' God, keeping the outward obedience in many areas of the Word, while losing the Life of Christ, living unchanged lives that leaves their children confused and angry, searching for the meaning in life, an aching void where parental guidance and teaching should have been.

 

Everyone of us has had trials like these. Even Jesus did...

 

>born in poverty, in conditions less than what any mother would choose for the birth of her baby

>rejected even from a young age because He was 'different'

>no earthly home to call His own

>falsely accused, mocked, and scorned on many occasions

>betrayed by one who called Him Lord at one time

>tempted by the devil in the wilderness while fasting 40 days

>killed for reasons completely arbitrary (humanly speaking) and uncalled for

 

He has born our griefs and carried our sorrows. He has been tempted in all points like we are. He knows what all our hardships feel like. He knows the testing that comes when we are bitterly disappointed about something (even something legitimate and righteous) and the temptation to become angry with God or bitter at life, to lose the joy of living. He knows all that.

 

Yet...

He says that He came that His joy might remain in us and that our joy will be full.

 

Joy...

I know what it is like to almost let go of joy. I know that season of mourning that comes to any whose hearts are broken with the things that break God's heart, that, although the joy of His salvation never leaves, finds one tripping over the sadness and the utter devastation that has come.

 

Joy...

Today I reached up through the sun's warming rays and called upon the Lord for new purpose in living life on purpose with joy. I want to put on the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. God has said No to me on something pretty big and I, although far from understanding where He is going with all this, I want to live my life with joy...

 

>because He is my Daddy God and will never ever let me go through an experience that is not for my good and for His glory

>because I believe that no good thing will He withold from them who walk uprightly

>because I want to stretch my hands to Him, no other help will I know that can so completely shelter me, surround me, strengthen me, and direct me in the Way of the Cross that leads Home

>because I have a family who needs to see my faith in Him put into action for otherwise, it is dead and I am leaving behind no legacy, no shining example to call them to come higher with Him, no purposeful living and no echoes of hope for them to increase their faith

 

I want joy. I want to live purposefully in  joy. So, to help me on in answering the call to live joyfully, I have found a few helps along the way...

 

Today, it was a project from Ann Voskamp's website "A Holy Experience". I have been blessed many times by reading her writing of the thousands of gifts we pass by every day and don't even take the time to notice.

I have that problem. Oh, yes, most assuredly I do. I am a star gazer. I reach for the ultimate experience and often miss the falling leaves along the way, the raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. I care so deeply about the broken places in my people that I often miss the moment with my little boy or the moments of blessing my daughters as I ought.

 

So (sighing deeply and reaching to the Sonshine in my life), I will walk in newness of joy. I love the Lord and long for more of His fullness. This is how He chose to answer that heartcry today.

 

Joy...it comes in the Morning after the long, dark night of the soul where we have wept a thousand times until we are spent and panting for rest, toiling for the sheaves that surely we will bring for the harvest. Until that Morning, however, there are hundreds of thousands of misty mornings we are given where He daily loads us with benefits. Practicing joy and the 'sacrifice of praise' is a daily must for me, telling God in many ways that I see and appreciate Him, and His benefits...and that no matter what happens (or doesn't happen), I believe He has my good in mind.

 

 



I rest on Him, my Shield and my Defender...

I go not on alone against the Foe.

 

I will practice joy, asking Him for the spirit of awareness about me daily, spilling over to those I meet along life's way, beginning in my home...

 

Joyfully I will adore Him.

 

He is worthy of all praise and glory and honor.

 

He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that I could ask or think.

 

He is my Abba Father. He knows my needs.

Better than I do.

 

He is my Father.

He is my Lover.

He is the Friend who sticks closer than any human ever could.

 

Thou wilt shew me the path of life:

 in thy presence [is] fulness of joy;

at thy right hand [there are] pleasures for evermore.

 

Psalm 16:11