A new year rings in and seems it is time to get rid of things. We clean closets and drawers and get rid of excess stuff! Some of us even get rid of stuff like extra pounds. It just so happens that this artsie sister is getting rid of a LOT more than the average pile of clothes!
We have all heard how we can
help others by prayer, but have you ever considered how very powerful it
is to pray for yourself ? While praying over the needs and trials of
others realize,YOU, Can pray YOU!
If you happen to be a lone empty nest single parent, there may be terrible bouts of sadness, missing, and loneliness, especially if the distance of family is hours away.
Well this single parent, empty Nestor had a seasonal crash!
All the visits were over, the ornaments put away and with haste
I moved onward into New Year's January! As I sat at my desk, working with new determination the New Year often brings, I looked at that old clock on the wall to see how soon I would be free to leave!
Well, fate would have that it was the time I used to pick up my sons from school, back in what I now call my other life.
A rush of all the years of that busy-ness and involvement in their lives flooded out from my thinking. Such a feeling of missing, of loneliness, of sadness visited me.
Believe me, those are NOT the kind of visitors we want to entertain!
Tears just rolled from my eyes, from my soul. I dabbed my face with Kleenex and fought the miserable attack. Hold it in, don't cry! What on earth? Earthly. Very earthly and very real. I had dealt with these visitors for quite some time and suddenly I said in myself;
"I DON'T WANT THIS"
I KNOW THAT I CAN GIVE THIS TO GOD!!
I clinched my fists and said in quiet desperation, to God.
"Lord, I DON'T WANT this! Here, I give it to you.
I give this loneliness, this missing, this sadness to you. All to you."
In that moment. That very moment, He took it.
JUST LIKE THAT!
And I know HE will take every sorrow, every addiction,
our EVERY discomfort and our every sinful habit.
EVEN THE HORRIFIC!
I do know that when you are left to the unlovely, ugly, maladies of life and of yourself, and when you accept there is no way to get away from it, and you begin to have to suffer it, that in time as a child of the most High God, you will tire of the pig pen it presents to you and call out in desperation for Your Daddy God to take it!
God's original intention was not for mankind to suffer.
He did not want the ugliness of life to land in our laps the way it has by sickness, war, pain, misery, and sin. Or for people to maim or murder and to destroy one another. His intentions toward us are for love to go with us all of our days.
For good things and not bad.
He intends for goodness and
mercy to follow us all the days
of our lives, AND He intends for
us to dwell with Him,
in the house of the Lord forever!
Good is ours to experience, but if you have never had a break, if your life has been painfully poured out most of the days of your remembering then it will be more difficult to fathom that there ARE good things for you. But that is what God has for you now.
You can have JOY in place of SADNESS,
DANCING in place of MOURNING.
You can have the highest quality of life, NOW!
Look forward in HOPE!
Have FAITH in GOD.
God is not mankind that He should lie.
Let God be true and every man a liar.
This is the litmus test, and the sum of the law of God;
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
To be guided, directed by God is the ultimate goal for a lover of Christ Jesus. You can be and will be as you learn to do what this passage of scripture says:
Trust in the Lord with all your heart.
Lean not on your own understanding.
Acknowledge Him in ALL your ways, and
He WILL direct your path.
Seek the Lord with all your heart. These things take time to learn, but learn them we must!
Trust in the Lord God,
no matter what!
At first it may be that you trust Him with little pieces of your heart.
I would say give all your heart to Him that He direct it in love.
Do we know how to love?
Not till the God who IS love
becomes our love.
Be careful of your own thinking. We as humans are prone to vain, dark thoughts. Even to the point of thinking we are able to read the thoughts of others. We are deceived in this. We must break free from believing we know the motives of others. Only God has the whole picture. You do not.
That's where
TRUSTING IN THE LORD
comes in
RATHER THAN
leaning to your
OWN UNDERSTANDING
tainted with VAIN IMAGINATIONS
of what we think others are ALL about.
IF YOU ARE TRUSTING IN GOD IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT OTHERS ARE ALL ABOUT!
Leave what others think, do, and say to Almighty God who judges hearts!
God is AWESOME.
He WILL NOT FAIL YOU!
And when it comes to
ACKNOWLEDGING HIM IN ALL YOUR WAYS,
Guess what?
Even those ways of ours that
are less than stellar!
Talk with Him about those things. He is the best and most trustworthy friend you can possibly find or have!
He does not chide us for our mistakes and weaknesses.
GOD IS OUR HELP!
