I love this song. I sing this to Salem every night. It speaks of my desperate need of God during the hard times. Today was a little rough. I know that this too shall pass. It’s rare that our little guy has days like today but when he does they wipe me out.
I may have posted this song years ago, but I find myself needing to hear it. Almost 3 months ago, I gave birth to our fourth child, but only the second to make it to life on earth. Since then, and quite frankly well before then, I’ve been struggling to find time to spend with the Lord. I’m ashamed to admit it, but the One I needed and still need most was pushed to the side. There is nothing like a new life and adjusting to a new member of the family to remind me of how much I need Him. My cup has been less than empty for quite some time – more like dry as a bone.
This evening I was reading the Magnificat and was reminded that I have only because God gives. Everything in my life is a testament to God’s grace and mercy. I have been ushered in to His table as one who belongs, when in fact I shouldn’t belong, but God in His infinite love and mercy seats me as though I do because I have been covered by the blood of His Son. In the moments where my identity has faded and seems to no longer exist I love that He reminds me my identity and significance is in Him. When I feel lost and alone, He tells me that I am neither. Not only does God always know exactly where I am, but He is always right beside me and at times carrying me through. This is one of those times. I’m grateful because I’m weary. My strength is gone and my will to move forward is barely there – it is now more than ever that He carries me. I’m grateful.
Matthew 11:28
“Come to me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”
Our pastor shared this video at church the other day and I LOVED it. It’s just a beautiful free verse that perfectly explains the divide between God and man.
Well, it wouldn’t let me embed the video so I just had to just share it with a link. Five years ago this Saturday, my now husband, but then boyfriend, asked me to marry him. I’m just feeling nostalgic and blessed and feel very fortunate to be married to my guy. The first video was my first choice for our first dance, but for some reason we didn’t go with it. I don’t really remember why. I still love our first dance song though. I’m a huge Patty Griffin nut so it was and still is definitely fitting that we danced our first dance as a married couple to her Heavenly Day…and a heavenly day it was. So here she is too.
John 20:11 – “But Mary was standing outside the tomb weeping; and so, as she wept, she stooped and looked into the tomb;”
For the past several weeks I have been doing a Bible Study through my church. The Bible Study in question is Beth Moore’s ‘James: Mercy Triumphs’. What I am about to write about really has nothing to do with the book of James, but rather a comment made by Mrs. Beth Moore that really resonated with me. In fact, I haven’t stopped thinking about it.
In the video session, We were discussing James 1:25, which says, “But one who looks intently at the perfect law, (A)the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but [b]an effectual doer, this man will be (B)blessed in [c]what he does.” Where it says “one who looks intently”, in the original Greek the same word is used to describe how Mary M “stooped” to look into the tomb. Beth Moore refreshed our memories about Mary at the tomb so that we could have a good word picture of what it looks like to be one who “looks intently” at Scripture. What she said next really, impacted me. Beth then made a conjecture (this is just her conjecture), that perhaps the reason Mary stood weeping and peering in to the tomb, was not necessarily out of mourning, but out of fear. Perhaps Mary Magdalene was afraid that with Jesus “gone” that people would only ever remember what she had been delivered from, rather than what she had been delivered to.
WOW!!!! Just saying it again blows me away. Seriously, she blew my mind. Instantly, I began to marinate on the power of what she had just said. Is it just me? Or does anyone else get the significance of that? My heart was instantly under conviction. So many times I have shared my testimony with others and it has been all about who I once was – in essence it has been all about me. Without even meaning to and with the best intentions I have told people about all that I had been delivered from and the problem is that the focus is not on what I have been delivered to. My testimony has been, “Look at me!!!! I’m not like this anymore!!!”, rather than, “Look at Him! He’s always the same! He never changes, but praise God by His power and might, we can.”
My focus has been more about from where I’ve come. I have willingly chosen to allow people to know/remember me based on what I was delivered from. To Mary Magdalene, a harlot, demon-possessed woman, it was less about her and more about the Man whose love covered over all of that. She had been delivered to a wonderful, merciful Savior. She had been delivered to a life of freedom, a life that was bigger than she was and a hope that was eternal. She wanted people to remember Him – not who she once was and was no more.
Maybe I am the only person that statement will ever impact, but I doubt it. I hope and I pray that from this day forward that I will remember that “my testimony” is not MY testimony at all, but it is His. Where I am now is less about who I was and more about Who He is and He is what I should be sharing with others.
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Click on the website below. This blessed me beyond measure. Hope it blesses you too.
http://www.godvine.com/10-Year-Old-Boy-with-Autism-Sings-Open-the-Eyes-of-My-Heart-1041.html
The sadness seems to have hit me right between the eyes. These songs I find so encouraging and comforting. It is a great thing to know that God is with me, for me and He can consume the sadness and grief that consumes me. I take great joy in it. Hope in Him is what fills me and keeps me pressing on and forward. This sadness is but a moment and fleeting.
While pain is always pain and by very definition hurts, I am so glad that there is no road so painful that God won’t walk it with me. One of my favorite passages is Psalm 139. Of course, I love the standard, (vs. 13), “For you formed my inward parts; You wove me in mother’s womb.”, but my favorite part of the passage is one I feel is overlooked.
Psalm 139: 7-12 says, “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, Youar e there. If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, Even there Your hand will lead me, and Your right hand will lay hold of me. If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, And the light around me will be night, ” Even the darkness is not dark to You, And the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You.”
I, for one, am so grateful that God can see through the darkness. As strange as it sounds, going through what is now my second miscarriage, is less daunting because I know the God of the universe is in complete control. Perhaps it is my personality, but I can’t help but look at how things could be worse. Maybe God is sparing me some future pain, perhaps the loss of the child in my womb is actually sparing the child of something, who knows? Only God. I have come to the hard conclusion that I would rather never know my babies than to birth them and have them never know Jesus. To lose a child to this world is a pain I hope and pray that I never have to bare. That might not make sense to some, but I assure you that living without Jesus isn’t living at all. I know, because I’ve done it. I take great comfort in knowing that when I leave this world, the children I’ve never known in this life, will be standing beside Jesus waiting to meet and greet me when I get to my eternal home.
Seeds of Life: Something That Matters 