So Sweet

I got up early this morning to spend some quiet time with my Lord.  What a sweet time it was.  I didn't know where I would start, what I would read, what I would listen to.... I just knew I wanted to get up.  I woke up with the lyrics of "Arise, My Soul Arise" in my head, but could only remember a few lines.  SO I started by looking it up.  That led to memories of my church in Nashville, the home I had for several years. So I looked them up.  Grace Community Church in Nashville.  How thrilling to read about how much they have grown, how they continue to grow and they now have a couple of albums out.  I am now listening to their worship recording from last year's Easter service.  It starts out with the children singing.  How wonderful those little voices are!  How refreshing, humbling and inspiring to hear such sweet little voices sing praise to our Lord.

I am really struggling to find my niche, the "thing" that I am supposed to be doing.  I am trying to spread in so many directions to "find myself" when all I really need to do is be still and look up.  To pray and to listen.  Something so simple, yet so hard.  We live in a world that tells us to push and strive for more all the time.  We live in a society which leads us to want to "keep up."  To do, do, do.  When, in fact, we are sometimes called to wait.  To be still.  It is so very hard to sit and be still.  Especially when people are looking at you and wondering why, in the midst of crisis and downfall, you are waiting, doing nothing and waiting.  I assure you, our waiting has nothing to do with our lack of energy or drive.  It has everything to do with waiting on the Lord.  To allow Him to work.  To allow Him to provide as He has promised.  He has called us to wait.  I am not saying that everyone is called to this in times of trial - you are responsible to pray and listen to what God is saying to you and asking you to do.  And only YOU know what He is asking you to do.  Here is what I know of my personal trial right now.  I have been scrambling to make things happen, to get something in place, to be able to help provide for my family.  I have let it overcome me.  To be my main focus.  So much so that I forgot to listen to the laughs of my children.  That I forgot to laugh with them.  That there is a life happening right in front of me and I am missing it.  God has entrusted to me these precious little girls who are full of giggles, tea parties, dress-up parties, silliness and love.  They need to be loved and nurtured, and I have missed out on some of it because of my own agenda.  My own need to be in control.   And in the process of trying to gain control, I was quickly spinning more out of control.  The more I try to take control, the more out of control and lost I become.  Funny how that works.

So, I began to take a minute to giggle with my silly and precious girls.  To be free and goofy.  And to remember what is really important in life.  And that I have a calling right in front of me - to care for and love my children, raising them to love and trust the Lord.  Knowing there is something additional coming, but that it will be revealed at just the right moment.  So as I wait for the big reveal, I will continue live each moment as it comes, to have a tea party with my girls, to dress-up for the ball, to be silly, to pray, worship and praise my Lord and Savior, remembering all that He gave for me - how much He loves me.... There is nothing like finding a prayer in the Bible that completely sums up all that you are thinking and feeling.  This passage popped up this morning, so I leave you with this prayer:

Psalm 139

 ¹ You have searched me, LORD,
   and you know me.
² You know when I sit and when I rise;
   you perceive my thoughts from afar.
³ You discern my going out and my lying down;
   you are familiar with all my ways.
⁴ Before a word is on my tongue
   you, LORD, know it completely.
⁵ You hem me in behind and before,
   and you lay your hand upon me.
⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
   too lofty for me to attain.

 ⁷ Where can I go from your Spirit?
   Where can I flee from your presence?
⁸ If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
   if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
   if I settle on the far side of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me,
   your right hand will hold me fast.
¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
   and the light become night around me,”
¹² even the darkness will not be dark to you;
   the night will shine like the day,
   for darkness is as light to you.

 ¹³ For you created my inmost being;
   you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
   your works are wonderful,
   I know that full well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you
   when I was made in the secret place,
   when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed body;
   all the days ordained for me were written in your book
   before one of them came to be.
¹⁷ How precious to me are your thoughts,^[a] God!
   How vast is the sum of them!
¹⁸ Were I to count them,
   they would outnumber the grains of sand—
   when I awake, I am still with you.

 ¹⁹ If only you, God, would slay the wicked!
   Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!
²⁰ They speak of you with evil intent;
   your adversaries misuse your name.
²¹ Do I not hate those who hate you, LORD,
   and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?
²² I have nothing but hatred for them;
   I count them my enemies.
²³ Search me, God, and know my heart;
   test me and know my anxious thoughts.
²⁴ See if there is any offensive way in me,
   and lead me in the way everlasting.