I spent the weekend with my best friend, S. We relived our college days of sorts by spending an extended period of time together talking and growing. I can't thank God enough for her and her forbearance with me while I pondered me, their mistreatment and my own issues surrounding it.
I began to cry out from the heart God have you forgotten me? Lord, what's wrong with me? Are you going to leave me alone forever?
The heavens were locked in silence. It wasn't until Wednesday that I saw Him work. I joined the local fitness center and who was there? A co-worker who mysteriously began talking to me a few weeks back. She's agreed to train me and will give me some free training sessions during her down time. Thursday morning brought a text from T & subsequent e-mails. My drive from work was the most telling. It was during that time that I felt my heart begin to soften and His words come to me.
Do you remember when you were young...how jubilant you were for me? You were my sweet little girl. You've always wanted to be daddy's little girl but what you neglect to realize is that you've always been mine. When you were nearly lost in the womb, I saved you. When you're near the brink of a break-down, I send someone to you. I will never leave or forsake you. You've looked for a love story in a man but I've written one between you and me. Your story has begun. It's a story of a little girl who's life was almost snuffed out, about a savior who always saved and a woman who's finding her voice. It was I who told your mother you'd be OK. I assured her that you and I would never part. You're OK. It's time to stand up for Truth and avoid evil.
It was then that I realized the blessings of God. I'm thankful that when we wait on Him; he always shows up. His love never ends and His acceptance is forever. Don't try to anger Him, rather try to please Him. Your greatest joy and strength will come from doing His will. In keeping His will we see our hearts grounded and our ways become established.
Solace should never be feared. It's in solace that we learn to find peace and contentment. It's in solace that we hear the cherished, loved voice of our Shephard.
May he guide you today in His everlasting love and may He bring you peace.
********************************************************************Lamentations 3:24 & 40 (New International Version)
24 I say to myself, "The LORD is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him."
40 Let us examine our ways and test them,
and let us return to the LORD.
My soul, hast thou pondered these words, "Be still, and know"? In the hour of perturbation, thou canst not hear the answer to thy prayers. How often has the answer seemed to come long after I The heart got no response in the moment of its crying--in its thunder, its earthquake, and its fire. But when the crying ceased, when the stillness fell, when thy hand desisted from knocking on the iron gate, when the interest of other lives broke the tragedy of thine own, then appeared the long-delayed reply. Thou must rest, O soul, if thou wouldst have thy heart's desire. Still the beating of thy pulse of personal care. Hide thy tempest of individual trouble behind the altar of a common tribulation and, that same night, the Lord shall appear to thee. The rainbow shall span the place of the subsiding flood, and in thy stillness thou shalt hear the everlasting music. --George Matheson (taken from Streams in The Dessert by Mrs. Charles E. Cowman 1/14/10)
You have been in the storms and swept by the blasts. Have they left you broken, weary, beaten in the valley, or have they lifted you to the sunlit summits of a richer, deeper, more abiding manhood and womanhood? Have they left you with more sympathy with the storm-swept and the battle-scarred? --Selected (taken from Streams in The Dessert by Mrs. Charles E. Cowman 1/15/10)
