Reliving the Past?

I wouldn't call it that.  I think that in walking through a difficult time with a friend, it's sparking my memory about a long ago time and place I was in.  One that I don't ever want to return to.  I have always loved to write and have filled journals and journals with entries from the past six or seven years of my life.  I pulled them out this morning and re-read some of them.  I was looking for one entry in particular.

I found it.  And with it came a flood of emotions.

It was interesting to see what state of mind I was in during that time...one of the darkest times of my life.  And you know what I found?  I was shocked, really, because I don't remember being this way at all.  I remember being angry, hurt and bitter.  But what I found amidst the bad days were words of praise.  I couldn't thank and praise God enough for what He was doing in my life at that time.  I was living life literally one day at a time, and He was carrying me most of those days.  Because I sure couldn't stand, much less walk, on my own two feet.  It's like the footprints in the sand story...when the man looked back and saw the one set of prints, he questioned God.  And God said, "My son, it is during those days that I picked you up and carried you."  Or something like that.

God truly carried me through that time.  Perhaps someday I'll share on here what this time was and what it was like, but not today.  What I do want to say is this: I don't know if any of you are going through something difficult right now.  Maybe you are slowly trying to move past hurt bestowed upon you by a loved one.  Maybe you're finding out something really scary that you're about to have to endure physically.  Maybe you are lonely and discouraged.  Maybe you're depressed.  And I don't know what to tell you about those things...but I do know this: the God of all comfort is with you.

His word says so.

2 Corinthians 1:3-4 "All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort.  He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others.  When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us."

And He is with you, because His word says:


Deuteronomy 31:6 "So be strong and courageous!  Do not be afraid and do not panic before them.  For the Lord your God will personally go ahead of you.  He will neither fail you nor abandon you."

I saw in that same journal that I made notation of Job...and was prompted to read it this morning.  I read in the first chapter that every morning, Job would purify his children.  He would say to himself, "Perhaps my children have sinned and have cursed God in their hearts."  And that statement reminded me of another thing I found in my journal: all the prayers I had in my heart, I wrote out on paper.  One of the reasons I like to journal is so that my kids will have something that I've written to them.  Long after I'm gone, they can pull these out and see how I prayed about every little bitty thing.

There is power in prayer.  When we pray over our husbands, our kids...there is something so powerful about praying for them.  It is the single most important thing we can do.  And it's a privilege that we have here in America that many of us take for granted...myself included.  When I know it's the first thing I should do, often, it ends up being the last thing I do.  It's so simple...but our minds make it so difficult.

When we pray, when we earnestly seek Him...He is there.  He hears our prayers.  He listens...pretty intently, I would imagine.  Jeremiah 29:12 says that He listens to us.  When we look for Him wholeheartedly, we will find Him.  Jeremiah 29:13 says that.

Anyone can call on Him.  Anyone.  You don't have to be "good enough", either.  He used the most unlikely people to do work in His kingdom...David, Moses...and the Bible tells about some of the things they STILL did wrong!  Nobody has to be perfect....thank the precious Lord that we are all works in progress!  

Well, my time if officially out.  I hope you all have a blessed day...remember that no matter what you are facing, God is right there, waiting on you to call out to Him.  Try it...you might be surprised.  Love to all.

*She Speaks Conference is about women connecting the hearts of women to the heart of our Father God and that your heart is to serve Him and His daughters, as He leads.  That is the exact reason why I am applying to win a scholarship to this summer's She Speaks conference.  Please consider praying for this opportunity...that if this is what God wants in my life, that He will fling open the doors to this opportunity.  He has given me a dream...and it's about time I take it out of my back pocket and blow the dust off of it.

To read more about this conference, click here. 

And if you're interested in what this conference has to offer, you can read about it here.