Conversations, Reflections & Meditations


	Main Page \| My Articles for The Life Connection \| Prayers and Meditations \| Poetry Haida Gwaii Reflections \| Education & Home-School \| Family
Sign Guestbook \| View Guestbook Comments? Questions? [email protected]	Prayer topics Great, Flashing, Brilliant Glory! Conquer The Powers of Darkness, Please, Lord Pour Your Adequacy Over Mr, Dear Lord I'm Such a Failure Wonderings and What-Ifs and God's Eternal Plans Great, Flashing, Brilliant Glory! Date: October 23, 2003 Wow! What an amazing midnight storm, Lord! Sheets and sheets of non-stop lightning and thunder that just rumbled on and on and on. And downpour rain and hail crashing onto the skylight. Never have I seen a storm like that. It brought to mind wonderful verses like "The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork," and "as the lightning flashes across the sky so shall the coming of the Son of Man be." It was glorious! How much more glorious will be my precious' Jesus return to gather His own in victory. No hidden reappearances - but great, flashing, brilliant glory! Amazing God! Jeremiah 10:13: "When He utters His voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens, And He causes the clouds to ascend from the end of the earth. He makes lightning for the rain, And brings out the wind from His storehouses." Return to the top Conquer the Powers of Darkness, Please, Lord Date: October 30, 2003 Thank You for the awesome wind storm! It was exciting! Oh, but Lord, please be with all the people whose property was damaged, and the people at the motel where the roof collapsed. Lord, please especially be with that Christian lady from the Yukon who was staying at the motel, and her room got trashed and her truck had a tree fall on it, and her 21 year old son had died just a couple days before, choking to death on food. Dear Lord, with Hallowe'en coming up, please pour out Your Spirit on this community and truly conquer the powers of darkness! Amen. Return to the top Pour Your Adequacy Over Me, Dear Lord Date: November 5, 2003 Dear Lord, You know the desires of my heart, my vision and dream - because You gave them to me and planted it deep in my heart, I believe. (Didn't You? It wasn't just me, was it? No -- everything that has happened in my life and in my adventure and journey with You has been leading in this direction, impossible as it sometimes seems. I believe! As in, I am stepping out now and acting on it even though I feel alone - well, without human support - and don't have the "resources" (time, talents, money) that most people would consider necessary. Actually, I think it lines up with the church's "vision" which I also believe in. People might argue that I am too careful, too cautious, too afraid of change, too sensitive to people getting upset, too detail-oriented. Well! God loves a challenge! And He uses detail-oriented people to develop the dreams of vision people. And I'm willing to put my administration "scruples" aside if God asks me to, so no problem! Anyway, Lord, I am ready to go ahead in Your will and let You do the impossible. Your will be done. Amen. Lord, You do want me - us - to reach out and bring others into Your glory, into the hope of Your glorious new covenant in Your Son, Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Lord, I want to be moved out of my little "churchy" comfort zone, and into the life-giving liberty of bringing others, the lost and veiled and hurting, into Your glorious kingdom family, into Your presence. Glorious, wonderful hope! I know it won't be easy... indeed, impossible for "me" with my cautiousness and my fears and my details, but all the more exciting because nothing is impossible for You. So I am available, Lord. Go for it! What a hope! What a glorious, adventuresome journey. Bring it on, Lord (and overcome my little fears, and use my inadequacies by pouring Your adequacy over me, to Your honour and glory, Lord. Amen!). Return to the top I'm Such a Failure Date: November 9, 2003 Am I just imagining, or selfishly wishing, that God wants to use my home as an outreach into the community? Is my family too dysfunctional? Is it bad of me to want to be hospitable when my hubby doesn't really want people coming over during the short times he is home? Is it bad of me to be lonely for adult companionship when I have a husband who loves me but is hardly ever here? Did our cell group leader really want to switch homes because mine is too small, or does he think it is not good to be in a place where some of the family is not "on board" spiritually? Why did ____ invite me to the leadership group? Do I really have any leadership material in me? How can I, when I feel like such a failure at everything: parenting, my job, leading worship at the cell group I attended in our last town, being a wife, and on and on...? Is it bad of me to take on any kind of even quasi-leadership role when my family isn't spiritually "together"? Is "administration" really my gift? It seems like such a guy thing. I used to think I was good at teaching, but if I was, why do I feel so hopeless now? Somebody I respect once told me that they believed I had a gifting in the area of hospitality - and I love doing that sort of thing - but my husband has never really been on-board about it so I've never had much of a chance. Is it my fault for not following the Lord when I met my husband, and for being divorced, or even for getting pregnant and having an abortion and getting married out of guilt that first time back when I was a teenager? Does God really want me to have this job? Are people right who say a women's place is in the home? Maybe I could do more for the Lord if I wasn't working. But I thought this job was God's provision. Now I'm not sure about that either. Am I really cut out for organizing the Children's church volunteers? I feel like I'm invading people's spaces, always phoning and pushing them to participate. And I don't handle it well when the admin team keeps changing things, and I'm not told, and then people get mad at me when I didn't even know changes were being made. I get too sensitive and get hurt too easily, and my whole family gets on my back to get out of this position. Running the "cafe" at the Saturday night "One-Eighty" youth service is something I feel I can handle, and I enjoy it. But I don't feel competent about this Children's church position, and I'm wondering if I'm way off-base in wanting to be a host home for a cell group. I guess I was dreaming of a small core group that would reach out into the community and be a light. But the cell group leader sees it as a chance for people already in the church to bond and connect, and then evangelism can come into it later. Well, there is wisdom in that, but starting with more than 25 people who already know each other well, with me being the new person....? ___ wants me to play guitar but I don't even know if I should after what happened before. Lots of people in the church have told me repeatedly that I should be on the church worship team because God has gifted me with a singing voice, and when I have led worship in the past, people have so often ended in tears and prayer before God. But at that other group the leader usually just let me lead one or two songs (occasionally more) because there "wasn't time." And then abruptly, without telling me, he changed to using videos (when I had come prepared, as usual, to lead), because ____ had "said we have a problem with worship at our life group." Maybe I was wrong to be shocked and hurt. Maybe that is just not what God wants me doing. The thing is, I don't know what God wants. But I do want to serve Him. I love meeting with God every morning for prayer and worship and Bible study (though it can be a problem when my hubby is home and wants my attention then. Does "respect for your husband" include toning your relationship with God way down when hubby is around?). I learn so much from the Lord. But I have no one to share it with, at least not my husband, and since my kids have gotten older they don't want to talk about the Lord much, though I think it was good when they were little. God has given me such a vision. But right now it all seems impossible. And I feel like I want to curl up in a little ball and hide. I wanted to go to the leadership meetings as ___ invited me to do, but I'm not in leadership so I really don't deserve or need to go, do I? I feel like I am a total screw-up. Like I'm no good at anything Doesn't God want to use me? (Well, maybe at One-Eighty to serve food). I used to think I had some abilities. I've done lots of things and I thought I did them pretty well. But maybe I was wrong. I wonder if other people feel the way I do? What have I done in the past? What does it say about me? Funny. I can analyze other people's abilities and giftings, but I just get more and more confused and lost when it comes to me. There's my dream or vision of speaking at women's gatherings, and teaching women from the Word (I've done this before and I know God has used it!). And being involved in practical outreach to hurting women, and to teens in trouble, especially girls, but maybe boys, too. Well, I've sure had experience at home, and some from my high school teaching days, too. And I dream of having a cell group ... a LIFE group ... in my home where people aren't just having their happy, comfortable little Christianly gathering, but are embracing hurting, needy people, and bringing them into relationship with God through not only His Word, but in practical helping ways, too. I don't see why my house is "too small". Where I have lived before, this would be a very nice roomy house. The people here don't know anything about how native people have house meetings and wakes that go on for days at a time in tiny, beat-up old houses, and 50 or 60 people squeeze into a living room and kitchen and up and down the hallways, and they just worship God and comfort each other and help each other. I guess it is totally another world to people here. I wonder what they think it is like in third world countries? Maybe God is just calling me to a part of society most Christians here don't know about, or having escaped it, don't want to go back (like I dread the thought of going back to Masset... though I would go in an instant if God called; or like I also dread nice little prissy middle class Christiany culture). Sorry for all the tears, Lord. You do know my heart. And I do know You are in control, and Your timing is perfect. Amen. ..... "Jill of all trades, master of none," that's me. But this I believe: God uses all our experiences, all our learning. Nothing is wasted in His purpose for us: He can even turn negatives into positives for His glory and honour. Also, I am too close to myself. God, and even others, can see patterns and potentialities I do not see. Oh! And God can always do something completely new and surprising and amazing! So what's next Lord? I'm looking up! ..... A word from the Lord (I believe): I need to pray things through more carefully. Is "this" really what God wants? Or is it just humans in a hurry? Are we in God's timing or in our own? Yes, God does want us to step out, but to step out in His economy, in His will, in His timing. We must take care not to run ahead of God, for then we are outside His pool of light and can only fall into the potholes and snares of the enemy [and of our own human short-sightedness] as we walk through the dark valleys and the midnight wrestlings. Return to the top Wonderings and What-Ifs and God's Eternal Plans Date: November 12, 2003 Wow! I went to sleep at 6 p.m. 10 hours of sleep. Thank You! Well, thinking about serving You: maybe I am looking for a service that will be seen by others, or even just a service that can be seen by me. I think I am getting more caring about what You think (and less of what others think), but it occurs to me just now that maybe I am still worried about what I think, my expectations of what is important or worthwhile or acceptable (though doubtless those expectations have been shaped by the world around me - and by its prince, our enemy: whom I do not want to serve; therefore, I do not want to accept his expectations as my own!). Oh dear God, transform my mind! And conform it to the mind of Christ. Form me into the person and life's purpose and plan that You created me for. In Jesus' name, amen. (Thank You for the insight. Wow). I am thinking (did You put it in my mind, Lord?) that maybe it is Your plan to have me continually messing up in my job, my home, in my ministries for You, to truly humble me, to stop me from looking for worldly acclaim, to learn that it is Your work, You working through me; not my work, or me working for You. And I've wondered in the past about Your sovereignty, and about Your purposes and plans, and what happens when we make wrong choices and go down paths of our own making. I've wondered how those times can be still part of Your plan. I have seen that You do "use" them - but have wondered what would have happened if I had followed "Your" plan for me, and what that plan might have been. So I find I worry a lot about whether I have made right decisions or not. Like this job - at the time I really felt that it was Your leading, but then it gets frustrating and the pay is low, and the work is hard, and I get so tired, and make so many dumb little mistakes. And I wonder if was just my choice based on needs I perceived for rent money and such. But I think I see now that I cannot judge the "rightness" of a decision based on whether it turns out pleasantly or not. Indeed, if we are called to bear Your cross in all of our lives, then too much comfortableness and flower garden type experiences might suggest we are not in Your path... But I digress... What I was actually thinking about was that in Your sovereign will and plan, You chose to let us choose to love You or not, and in that choice, with Your foreknowledge, You knew the decisions (all of them) we would make, and (I think) You therefore made even our worst decisions part of Your eternal plan of love for each of us (and the same goes for the decisions of others, that impact us). Of course that doesn't free us from the responsibility to love You and to obey You (in fact, Your love compels us to love You in return. We owe You - big time!). We must love and obey You as best we can, according to, as Your Word says, the light You have given us, the revelation of ourself which You have given separately to each individual in Your sovereign will (another of those things we sometimes wonder about the "fairness" of: having to do with predestination and Your sovereignty and You being the potter with the choice of whether to make us for special or ordinary use - or even toss the lump of clay aside...). But it is a wonder of grace that You have loved us so greatly that, knowing in advance all of our decisions, You choose still to love us and to be part of our lives (directly and eternally if we will accept You - or less directly but still available and still in control during our lifetime, if we reject You, knowing the pain of separation our rejection will cost You and us, eternally). And You choose to use even our wrong decisions, our many disobediences, our many choices of "independence" (my numberless independent choices... forgive me, Lord) to draw us into closer relationship with You and to use us for Your service, and ultimately to bring us into Your direct Presence and glory forever. What hope! What joy! What forgiveness! What holiness! What perfection! What love! "Such love, such wondrous love... That God should love a sinner such as I, How wonderful is love like this!" Dear God, please keep answering Paul's prayer in my life: "May your roots go down deep into the soil of God's marvelous love, and may you be able to feel and understand, as all God's children should, how long, how deep, and how high His love really is, and to experience this love for yourselves, though it is so great that you will never see the end of it or fully know or understand it." (Ephesians 3:17-19) Such love! I humbly bow my head, and quietly say, "Thank You, Father." (I also feel like jumping up and running around, waving my arms, and twirling around, and dancing and leaping and shouting with joy -- "Thank You, Father!") "Tremble, O earth, before the Lord, Before the God of Jacob." (Psalm 114:7) "Why should any living mortal, or any man offer complaint in view of his sins? Let us examine and probe our ways, And let us return to the LORD." (Lam 3:39-40) Return to the top
Main Page \| My Articles for The Life Connection \| Prayers and Meditations \| Poetry Haida Gwaii Reflections \| Education & Home-School \| Family


	Main Page \| My Articles for The Life Connection \| Prayers and Meditations \| Poetry Haida Gwaii Reflections \| Education & Home-School \| Family
Sign Guestbook \| View Guestbook Comments? Questions? [email protected]	Prayer topics Great, Flashing, Brilliant Glory! Conquer The Powers of Darkness, Please, Lord Pour Your Adequacy Over Mr, Dear Lord I'm Such a Failure Wonderings and What-Ifs and God's Eternal Plans Great, Flashing, Brilliant Glory! Date: October 23, 2003 Wow! What an amazing midnight storm, Lord! Sheets and sheets of non-stop lightning and thunder that just rumbled on and on and on. And downpour rain and hail crashing onto the skylight. Never have I seen a storm like that. It brought to mind wonderful verses like "The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork," and "as the lightning flashes across the sky so shall the coming of the Son of Man be." It was glorious! How much more glorious will be my precious' Jesus return to gather His own in victory. No hidden reappearances - but great, flashing, brilliant glory! Amazing God! Jeremiah 10:13: "When He utters His voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens, And He causes the clouds to ascend from the end of the earth. He makes lightning for the rain, And brings out the wind from His storehouses." Return to the top Conquer the Powers of Darkness, Please, Lord Date: October 30, 2003 Thank You for the awesome wind storm! It was exciting! Oh, but Lord, please be with all the people whose property was damaged, and the people at the motel where the roof collapsed. Lord, please especially be with that Christian lady from the Yukon who was staying at the motel, and her room got trashed and her truck had a tree fall on it, and her 21 year old son had died just a couple days before, choking to death on food. Dear Lord, with Hallowe'en coming up, please pour out Your Spirit on this community and truly conquer the powers of darkness! Amen. Return to the top Pour Your Adequacy Over Me, Dear Lord Date: November 5, 2003 Dear Lord, You know the desires of my heart, my vision and dream - because You gave them to me and planted it deep in my heart, I believe. (Didn't You? It wasn't just me, was it? No -- everything that has happened in my life and in my adventure and journey with You has been leading in this direction, impossible as it sometimes seems. I believe! As in, I am stepping out now and acting on it even though I feel alone - well, without human support - and don't have the "resources" (time, talents, money) that most people would consider necessary. Actually, I think it lines up with the church's "vision" which I also believe in. People might argue that I am too careful, too cautious, too afraid of change, too sensitive to people getting upset, too detail-oriented. Well! God loves a challenge! And He uses detail-oriented people to develop the dreams of vision people. And I'm willing to put my administration "scruples" aside if God asks me to, so no problem! Anyway, Lord, I am ready to go ahead in Your will and let You do the impossible. Your will be done. Amen. Lord, You do want me - us - to reach out and bring others into Your glory, into the hope of Your glorious new covenant in Your Son, Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Lord, I want to be moved out of my little "churchy" comfort zone, and into the life-giving liberty of bringing others, the lost and veiled and hurting, into Your glorious kingdom family, into Your presence. Glorious, wonderful hope! I know it won't be easy... indeed, impossible for "me" with my cautiousness and my fears and my details, but all the more exciting because nothing is impossible for You. So I am available, Lord. Go for it! What a hope! What a glorious, adventuresome journey. Bring it on, Lord (and overcome my little fears, and use my inadequacies by pouring Your adequacy over me, to Your honour and glory, Lord. Amen!). Return to the top I'm Such a Failure Date: November 9, 2003 Am I just imagining, or selfishly wishing, that God wants to use my home as an outreach into the community? Is my family too dysfunctional? Is it bad of me to want to be hospitable when my hubby doesn't really want people coming over during the short times he is home? Is it bad of me to be lonely for adult companionship when I have a husband who loves me but is hardly ever here? Did our cell group leader really want to switch homes because mine is too small, or does he think it is not good to be in a place where some of the family is not "on board" spiritually? Why did ____ invite me to the leadership group? Do I really have any leadership material in me? How can I, when I feel like such a failure at everything: parenting, my job, leading worship at the cell group I attended in our last town, being a wife, and on and on...? Is it bad of me to take on any kind of even quasi-leadership role when my family isn't spiritually "together"? Is "administration" really my gift? It seems like such a guy thing. I used to think I was good at teaching, but if I was, why do I feel so hopeless now? Somebody I respect once told me that they believed I had a gifting in the area of hospitality - and I love doing that sort of thing - but my husband has never really been on-board about it so I've never had much of a chance. Is it my fault for not following the Lord when I met my husband, and for being divorced, or even for getting pregnant and having an abortion and getting married out of guilt that first time back when I was a teenager? Does God really want me to have this job? Are people right who say a women's place is in the home? Maybe I could do more for the Lord if I wasn't working. But I thought this job was God's provision. Now I'm not sure about that either. Am I really cut out for organizing the Children's church volunteers? I feel like I'm invading people's spaces, always phoning and pushing them to participate. And I don't handle it well when the admin team keeps changing things, and I'm not told, and then people get mad at me when I didn't even know changes were being made. I get too sensitive and get hurt too easily, and my whole family gets on my back to get out of this position. Running the "cafe" at the Saturday night "One-Eighty" youth service is something I feel I can handle, and I enjoy it. But I don't feel competent about this Children's church position, and I'm wondering if I'm way off-base in wanting to be a host home for a cell group. I guess I was dreaming of a small core group that would reach out into the community and be a light. But the cell group leader sees it as a chance for people already in the church to bond and connect, and then evangelism can come into it later. Well, there is wisdom in that, but starting with more than 25 people who already know each other well, with me being the new person....? ___ wants me to play guitar but I don't even know if I should after what happened before. Lots of people in the church have told me repeatedly that I should be on the church worship team because God has gifted me with a singing voice, and when I have led worship in the past, people have so often ended in tears and prayer before God. But at that other group the leader usually just let me lead one or two songs (occasionally more) because there "wasn't time." And then abruptly, without telling me, he changed to using videos (when I had come prepared, as usual, to lead), because ____ had "said we have a problem with worship at our life group." Maybe I was wrong to be shocked and hurt. Maybe that is just not what God wants me doing. The thing is, I don't know what God wants. But I do want to serve Him. I love meeting with God every morning for prayer and worship and Bible study (though it can be a problem when my hubby is home and wants my attention then. Does "respect for your husband" include toning your relationship with God way down when hubby is around?). I learn so much from the Lord. But I have no one to share it with, at least not my husband, and since my kids have gotten older they don't want to talk about the Lord much, though I think it was good when they were little. God has given me such a vision. But right now it all seems impossible. And I feel like I want to curl up in a little ball and hide. I wanted to go to the leadership meetings as ___ invited me to do, but I'm not in leadership so I really don't deserve or need to go, do I? I feel like I am a total screw-up. Like I'm no good at anything Doesn't God want to use me? (Well, maybe at One-Eighty to serve food). I used to think I had some abilities. I've done lots of things and I thought I did them pretty well. But maybe I was wrong. I wonder if other people feel the way I do? What have I done in the past? What does it say about me? Funny. I can analyze other people's abilities and giftings, but I just get more and more confused and lost when it comes to me. There's my dream or vision of speaking at women's gatherings, and teaching women from the Word (I've done this before and I know God has used it!). And being involved in practical outreach to hurting women, and to teens in trouble, especially girls, but maybe boys, too. Well, I've sure had experience at home, and some from my high school teaching days, too. And I dream of having a cell group ... a LIFE group ... in my home where people aren't just having their happy, comfortable little Christianly gathering, but are embracing hurting, needy people, and bringing them into relationship with God through not only His Word, but in practical helping ways, too. I don't see why my house is "too small". Where I have lived before, this would be a very nice roomy house. The people here don't know anything about how native people have house meetings and wakes that go on for days at a time in tiny, beat-up old houses, and 50 or 60 people squeeze into a living room and kitchen and up and down the hallways, and they just worship God and comfort each other and help each other. I guess it is totally another world to people here. I wonder what they think it is like in third world countries? Maybe God is just calling me to a part of society most Christians here don't know about, or having escaped it, don't want to go back (like I dread the thought of going back to Masset... though I would go in an instant if God called; or like I also dread nice little prissy middle class Christiany culture). Sorry for all the tears, Lord. You do know my heart. And I do know You are in control, and Your timing is perfect. Amen. ..... "Jill of all trades, master of none," that's me. But this I believe: God uses all our experiences, all our learning. Nothing is wasted in His purpose for us: He can even turn negatives into positives for His glory and honour. Also, I am too close to myself. God, and even others, can see patterns and potentialities I do not see. Oh! And God can always do something completely new and surprising and amazing! So what's next Lord? I'm looking up! ..... A word from the Lord (I believe): I need to pray things through more carefully. Is "this" really what God wants? Or is it just humans in a hurry? Are we in God's timing or in our own? Yes, God does want us to step out, but to step out in His economy, in His will, in His timing. We must take care not to run ahead of God, for then we are outside His pool of light and can only fall into the potholes and snares of the enemy [and of our own human short-sightedness] as we walk through the dark valleys and the midnight wrestlings. Return to the top Wonderings and What-Ifs and God's Eternal Plans Date: November 12, 2003 Wow! I went to sleep at 6 p.m. 10 hours of sleep. Thank You! Well, thinking about serving You: maybe I am looking for a service that will be seen by others, or even just a service that can be seen by me. I think I am getting more caring about what You think (and less of what others think), but it occurs to me just now that maybe I am still worried about what I think, my expectations of what is important or worthwhile or acceptable (though doubtless those expectations have been shaped by the world around me - and by its prince, our enemy: whom I do not want to serve; therefore, I do not want to accept his expectations as my own!). Oh dear God, transform my mind! And conform it to the mind of Christ. Form me into the person and life's purpose and plan that You created me for. In Jesus' name, amen. (Thank You for the insight. Wow). I am thinking (did You put it in my mind, Lord?) that maybe it is Your plan to have me continually messing up in my job, my home, in my ministries for You, to truly humble me, to stop me from looking for worldly acclaim, to learn that it is Your work, You working through me; not my work, or me working for You. And I've wondered in the past about Your sovereignty, and about Your purposes and plans, and what happens when we make wrong choices and go down paths of our own making. I've wondered how those times can be still part of Your plan. I have seen that You do "use" them - but have wondered what would have happened if I had followed "Your" plan for me, and what that plan might have been. So I find I worry a lot about whether I have made right decisions or not. Like this job - at the time I really felt that it was Your leading, but then it gets frustrating and the pay is low, and the work is hard, and I get so tired, and make so many dumb little mistakes. And I wonder if was just my choice based on needs I perceived for rent money and such. But I think I see now that I cannot judge the "rightness" of a decision based on whether it turns out pleasantly or not. Indeed, if we are called to bear Your cross in all of our lives, then too much comfortableness and flower garden type experiences might suggest we are not in Your path... But I digress... What I was actually thinking about was that in Your sovereign will and plan, You chose to let us choose to love You or not, and in that choice, with Your foreknowledge, You knew the decisions (all of them) we would make, and (I think) You therefore made even our worst decisions part of Your eternal plan of love for each of us (and the same goes for the decisions of others, that impact us). Of course that doesn't free us from the responsibility to love You and to obey You (in fact, Your love compels us to love You in return. We owe You - big time!). We must love and obey You as best we can, according to, as Your Word says, the light You have given us, the revelation of ourself which You have given separately to each individual in Your sovereign will (another of those things we sometimes wonder about the "fairness" of: having to do with predestination and Your sovereignty and You being the potter with the choice of whether to make us for special or ordinary use - or even toss the lump of clay aside...). But it is a wonder of grace that You have loved us so greatly that, knowing in advance all of our decisions, You choose still to love us and to be part of our lives (directly and eternally if we will accept You - or less directly but still available and still in control during our lifetime, if we reject You, knowing the pain of separation our rejection will cost You and us, eternally). And You choose to use even our wrong decisions, our many disobediences, our many choices of "independence" (my numberless independent choices... forgive me, Lord) to draw us into closer relationship with You and to use us for Your service, and ultimately to bring us into Your direct Presence and glory forever. What hope! What joy! What forgiveness! What holiness! What perfection! What love! "Such love, such wondrous love... That God should love a sinner such as I, How wonderful is love like this!" Dear God, please keep answering Paul's prayer in my life: "May your roots go down deep into the soil of God's marvelous love, and may you be able to feel and understand, as all God's children should, how long, how deep, and how high His love really is, and to experience this love for yourselves, though it is so great that you will never see the end of it or fully know or understand it." (Ephesians 3:17-19) Such love! I humbly bow my head, and quietly say, "Thank You, Father." (I also feel like jumping up and running around, waving my arms, and twirling around, and dancing and leaping and shouting with joy -- "Thank You, Father!") "Tremble, O earth, before the Lord, Before the God of Jacob." (Psalm 114:7) "Why should any living mortal, or any man offer complaint in view of his sins? Let us examine and probe our ways, And let us return to the LORD." (Lam 3:39-40) Return to the top
Main Page \| My Articles for The Life Connection \| Prayers and Meditations \| Poetry Haida Gwaii Reflections \| Education & Home-School \| Family