Writing this on Memorial Day. Just got home from going to the cemetery with Ty's parents and my mom. We talked about how glad we are to be able to rejoice that Ty and our daughter (granddaughter), Marshay are in heaven. What a blessing it was to then hold hands as Dad prayed thanking our Lord for His faithfulness, acknowledging our loneliness for Ty but still rejoicing in the love and compassion of Jesus for us, knowing that His plan is always the best plan whether we understand it or not. Thankful for Mom and Dad (Ty's folks) and all their encouragement, love and support. So fun to be with them even though being with Dad makes me miss Ty more because Ty was so much like him.
It's been a week of contemplation as Ty's Grandma Farney died. She was 101 years old and ready to meet her Savior. She and Ty shared the same birthday on Christmas Eve. We usually celebrated with a birthday breakfast at Mom and Dad's. What fun that was!! Imagining Ty enveloping his grandma in a big hug as he welcomed her to heaven makes me smile. It also made my heart ache to be there with them. But...my loving heavenly Father reminded me once again that He still has plans for me here, and I need to just keep walking with Him day by day until that day that He takes me home.
After returning home from the cemetery, I once again reached for my Bible and enjoyed some time with Jesus. As I visited with Him, I was reminded how much my faith has grown in the last 3 1/2 years since Ty went to heaven and into the arms of Jesus. I know my Savior so much better now. I know that He is faithful as He has proven to me over and over. Rejoicing in Him today!!! As I was praying, He brought Psalm 39 to my mind. The theme: "Apart from God, life is fleeting and empty." Amen to that!!! Because of my relationship with my Savior, Jesus Christ, I have joy, peace, fulfillment, and contentment in my life now without my sweetheart, Ty. Only Jesus can mend our broken hearts and give us everything we need to carry on in this world. Verse 12 says: "Hear my prayer, O Lord, listen to my cry for help; be not deaf to my weeping." By that verse in my Bible I have written 2 dates--one of which was on another Memorial Day when my kids left to go home and I was particularly lonely. I cried out to my Lord, and He did hear my prayer and reminded me of the HOPE that only He can give. As verse 7 says: "But now, Lord, what do I look for? My HOPE is in You." That's what Jesus has done for me day after day is fill up the loneliness in my heart with more of Him. I continue to be so in awe of Him and His overwhelming love and care for me. As I read through the rest of this Psalm, verses 5 and 6 especially stood out on this Memorial Day as a reminder to how short our lives are here compared to eternity. "You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before You. Each man's life is but a breath. Man is a mere phantom as he goes to and fro. He bustles about but only in vain; he heaps up wealth, not knowing who will get it." Then again to verse 7: "But now, Lord, what do I look for? My HOPE is in You." The life application commentary for those verses: "The brevity of life is a theme throughout the books of Psalms, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. Ironically people spend so much time securing their lives on earth and spend little or no thought about where they will spend eternity. David realized that amassing riches and busily accomplishing worldly tasks would make no difference in eternity. Few people understand that their only HOPE is in the Lord."
My HOPE today is that your HOPE is in Jesus and that you have a personal intimate relationship with Him. If you don't and would like to just click on this word: HOPE to read His personal invitation to you from His Word. A relationship with Jesus is the most important relationship you will ever have. For those of us who do know Jesus I pray that our desire to know Jesus better will increase every day and our focus on this world and the things of this world will decrease. Being on my clothing fast this year is definitely helping me in that area. (I'll share more about that in another post.) As I've mentioned many times here before--NOTHING and NO ONE in this world can meet our deepest needs like Jesus can. As followers of Jesus Christ--remember this world is not our home--we are just passing through until that day when we'll be truly home with Jesus--our Lord and Savior forever and ever! I can't wait--how about you?
I'll close with the song "What a Savior" trusting, as the song says, that He is your Savior, your deepest desire and your HOPE.
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Resting in God's Promises
Here are some facts for you to ponder and rejoice in:
God's Word, the Bible is readily available to each one of us to correct, encourage, comfort and guide us.
God, the creator of the universe, loves and delights in you and desires to have a personal, intimate relationship with you.
All of God's promises are true. You can always count on Him.
He will never leave you or forsake you.
My heart breaks when I hear statistics saying that many people who call themselves Christians don't believe that the Bible is God's inspired and living Word to us. As I've mentioned before--I think of it as His love letter to me. It becomes dearer to my heart each day because my love for my Savior, Jesus, grows every day.
It wasn’t always that way though. For many years Jesus wasn’t my top priority. I can see that so clearly now but couldn’t see it then. Satan–the great deceiver is so good at sidetracking us and getting us to focus and spend our time at anything else other than at the feet of Jesus, reading His Word and talking with Him. He loves to keep us so busy with life, our families, and often times with many “good” things so that our time with Jesus is just a few moments squeezed in. It wasn’t until I became very weary of trying to keep up with all that the world says you have to be and have that I was exhausted. I was always seeking that elusive peace, contentment and joy through yet another person (family, friends) place (vacations, church, my home) or thing (food, clothes, TV, movies, books, exercise, etc.). But then I cried out to Jesus and told Him that I wanted to know Him and claimed His promises from James 4:8 “Draw near to me and I will draw near to you.” and from Jeremiah 29:13 “You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart.”
God is just waiting patiently for us to desire to know Him. What I found is that as I picked up His Word and made seeking Him and knowing Him better a priority that He created in my heart more of a hunger to know Him more intimately every day. It was amazing and still is amazing. He is amazing! You can never outgive God. I can promise you that as you step out in faith, He will show up and bless you--often not with more things of this world but more of Himself which is far better than anything else.
I still marvel at all the changes He has made in my heart as I have chosen to make knowing Him better and loving Him more the priority of every new day. It's a choice I make every day with every decision. He wants to lead us every step and every moment of every day. My desire is to be so in step with Him that I'm allowing Him to direct and lead me constantly--that I am willing to lay aside my schedule for His--always. That's definitely not easy at times because I want my way, but every time I choose to obey I am blessed because His way is always BEST. That elusive peace, joy, hope and contentment that I was searching for I have now found in Jesus alone. What freedom that brings! I believe every one of His promises because I know and trust Him. Because of that I do not fear what tomorrow holds because I know who holds the future! But...there is much fear in our world. The following statements come from Jon Bloom's blog which he wrote a few days after the terror attack at the Boston Marathon. Satan wants us to believe: "You are not safe anywhere. Your trust in God is a foolish trust. Your God is not going to deliver you." Jon goes on to say that "fearing the Lord is believing the Lord. God's Word is stronger that the evil in the world." Do you believe that God is in control no matter what happens in our world? Do you stand on God's promises and REST in them?
I would like to share with you the blog page I mentioned above by Jon Bloom. I encourage you to click this link: Lay Aside the Weight of Fear. I read it on the Desiring God website and made a copy for myself because it has a list of many of God's wonderful promises which I hope and pray will encourage you and bring you peace. What we read, listen to and fill our minds with is what we become. I pray that we will all become more and more like Jesus as we read His story, His love letter, to us.
The song I've chosen to share with you is another one that our praise team at church shared with us. It's called "Sovereign". It sums up so well what I've tried to share with you--that our God is in control, that we do not need to fear anything, that all of our hopes, lives, fears and dreams are held in His hands, and we can trust Him!!!
God's Word, the Bible is readily available to each one of us to correct, encourage, comfort and guide us.
God, the creator of the universe, loves and delights in you and desires to have a personal, intimate relationship with you.
All of God's promises are true. You can always count on Him.
He will never leave you or forsake you.
My heart breaks when I hear statistics saying that many people who call themselves Christians don't believe that the Bible is God's inspired and living Word to us. As I've mentioned before--I think of it as His love letter to me. It becomes dearer to my heart each day because my love for my Savior, Jesus, grows every day.
It wasn’t always that way though. For many years Jesus wasn’t my top priority. I can see that so clearly now but couldn’t see it then. Satan–the great deceiver is so good at sidetracking us and getting us to focus and spend our time at anything else other than at the feet of Jesus, reading His Word and talking with Him. He loves to keep us so busy with life, our families, and often times with many “good” things so that our time with Jesus is just a few moments squeezed in. It wasn’t until I became very weary of trying to keep up with all that the world says you have to be and have that I was exhausted. I was always seeking that elusive peace, contentment and joy through yet another person (family, friends) place (vacations, church, my home) or thing (food, clothes, TV, movies, books, exercise, etc.). But then I cried out to Jesus and told Him that I wanted to know Him and claimed His promises from James 4:8 “Draw near to me and I will draw near to you.” and from Jeremiah 29:13 “You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart.”
God is just waiting patiently for us to desire to know Him. What I found is that as I picked up His Word and made seeking Him and knowing Him better a priority that He created in my heart more of a hunger to know Him more intimately every day. It was amazing and still is amazing. He is amazing! You can never outgive God. I can promise you that as you step out in faith, He will show up and bless you--often not with more things of this world but more of Himself which is far better than anything else.
I still marvel at all the changes He has made in my heart as I have chosen to make knowing Him better and loving Him more the priority of every new day. It's a choice I make every day with every decision. He wants to lead us every step and every moment of every day. My desire is to be so in step with Him that I'm allowing Him to direct and lead me constantly--that I am willing to lay aside my schedule for His--always. That's definitely not easy at times because I want my way, but every time I choose to obey I am blessed because His way is always BEST. That elusive peace, joy, hope and contentment that I was searching for I have now found in Jesus alone. What freedom that brings! I believe every one of His promises because I know and trust Him. Because of that I do not fear what tomorrow holds because I know who holds the future! But...there is much fear in our world. The following statements come from Jon Bloom's blog which he wrote a few days after the terror attack at the Boston Marathon. Satan wants us to believe: "You are not safe anywhere. Your trust in God is a foolish trust. Your God is not going to deliver you." Jon goes on to say that "fearing the Lord is believing the Lord. God's Word is stronger that the evil in the world." Do you believe that God is in control no matter what happens in our world? Do you stand on God's promises and REST in them?
I would like to share with you the blog page I mentioned above by Jon Bloom. I encourage you to click this link: Lay Aside the Weight of Fear. I read it on the Desiring God website and made a copy for myself because it has a list of many of God's wonderful promises which I hope and pray will encourage you and bring you peace. What we read, listen to and fill our minds with is what we become. I pray that we will all become more and more like Jesus as we read His story, His love letter, to us.
The song I've chosen to share with you is another one that our praise team at church shared with us. It's called "Sovereign". It sums up so well what I've tried to share with you--that our God is in control, that we do not need to fear anything, that all of our hopes, lives, fears and dreams are held in His hands, and we can trust Him!!!
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