I wish I had more time to write... My life is so busy. If you have little children, then you well know how taking care of them alone is a full-time job, but when you are doing it alone, the extra responsibilities of working and all the little things that add up to major time-eaters, definitely keep a woman and mommy BUSY! I am currently sitting here writing with a nursing baby in my lap. She was sick all week with some kind of cough/throw up/fever thing and has been in Mama's lap every second she can. My room is a wreck... I washed clothes last Saturday, more than a week ago now, and they still sit folded in the laundry baskets, lol. I've been to the store about 3 times this weekend because my head is in so many places, that I can't get it together and remember everything I needed. And I will still have to go again this afternoon because I forgot to remember that we will have to eat this coming week too, haha... Oh the joy!
But I'm happy. I don't know if I've ever felt this much joy and peace. I'm at rest, despite the fact that my surroundings might suggest otherwise. I'm excited and full of anticipation for what is to come in our lives!
There is so much good that has gone on, true miracles that I didn't know if I would ever see that I would love to share, but it's not mine to share so publicly so soon. Later on I'll be able to post it. :)
What I can say, and it's really the only important part anyway, is God is so good. He is so good to me, so good to my husband, so good to my family. I know that he has plans for us in Mexico, and I can't wait to walk in them.
He has had me in such a place of peace and joy, just so wrapped in his love, that I feel and experience it in a way that I never have before. It's like... I always had the right answers to the tough questions, and "knew" that God was my loving father instead of an angry judge, but I lived my life and expected those around me to live by the "right" set of rules. And now I know that this was actually evidence of the fact that it was only head knowledge and symptoms of the unexperienced truth of God's character. It was rhetoric. Man, I had no idea what it meant to know God's love. And it's like... He didn't just show me, he overwhelmed me. Overwhelmed me with his presence, with his embrace. I don't know how else to explain it... Except to say, God is so good. And that is a major understatement.
He showed me his love first in an experiential way, just a comfort and rest in knowing he was taking care of me, and revealing to me how sweet and what a blessing these last 8 months have truly been. And it was enough. It was more than enough. It was glorious. Then, he started actually taking care of things. Money is tight and I was just making it before we found out we would be moving to Mexico. Add on top of that plane tickets, passports, finishing paying off our immigration attorney, vet visits, survival money for Carlos until he gets a job, and another million seemingly endless things that you don't think about think about until it's time to go, and time-eaters, like driving back and forth THREE times to the passport office because of distraction and lack of paperwork. Like having to find a way to sell or give away a house full of items that have been accumulated over the course of a lifetime, piddly things and sentimental things. But in the end, they are just things.
Anyway, so Carlos and I decided we would sell my car without fixing it, since I can't take it with me, and I've been without it for the last 8 months anyway, it just wasn't worth it to come up with the money to fix it, only to then have to turn around and sell it. Just minor issues, something that anyone remotely handy around a car could fix in a matter of an hour or so, but unfortunately, I am NOT technically minded, haha. But the thought of selling the car was so daunting! How do I do it? What do I say? How do I explain what the problem is if I don't even understand it myself? So I sat on it for a few days, and then, out of the blue, I get a phone call from my niece (the car was being stored at her house) saying that she woke up to a note on the windshield of her car. A name and phone number of someone who drove by, saw the car, and was interested in buying it! And he paid exactly what I had in mind to sell it for! God. It was just God. He took all the "work" out of that, and just blessed us. Hopefully, my car will be a blessing to the man who bought it; it sure has been one to me all these years.
Before deciding to sell the car, I had received a message from a friend that someone was going to anonymously donate money to our Mexico trip and needs! WHAT?! And it was exactly the amount I had calculated needing in order to get everything done. Look, I really hate talking about money, it just makes me really uncomfortable, always has, so I avoid it at all costs. But, WHAT?! Unfortunately, despite my aversion to the subject, it is necessary in this world. And my heavenly father knows that. He didn't make me scrape and scrounge and beg (although I have before), he just ...gave it to me... and he is so good. To be honest, I am really glad it was "anonymous" because I would have a really hard time being face-to-face with that person(s), lol, just because, well, I don't know, it's weird. God is soooooo good. He just is. And not because of his benefits, but because of his relationship.
Am I getting too mushy? I don't want to be, as I really am not too much of an emotional person, but there just isn't another way to express it than this. And it's really awesome when God makes things so apparent, when he takes all the guess work out of it. I don't "deserve" any of this. I didn't work for it, thank God, that's too much pressure, and I don't handle "expectations" too well. Now if HE wants to do all the work for me? Go right ahead, you do it, you change my heart, you make it happen in me and for me. You be my Daddy, a Daddy who cares for his daughters, his sons. More than I care for mine. Now that's a thought... A scripture comes to my mind a lot lately,
"And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, "This is the way, walk in it," when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left. Then you will defile your carved idols overlaid with silver and your gold-plated metal images. You will scatter them as unclean things. You will say to them, "Be gone!" And he will give rain for the seed with which you sow the ground, and bread, the produce of the ground, which will be rich and plenteous... You shall have a song as in the night when a holy feast is kept, and gladness of heart, as when one sets out to the sound of the flute to go to the mountain of the Lord, to the Rock of Israel."
-Isaiah 30:20-23, 29
Again, a super long post, sorry about that. Maybe if I posted more often they wouldn't be so long, but alas, life calls... and children... and responsibilities... but this post has been running through my mind for a few weeks now, and I just had to get it out.
Love you all.
But I'm happy. I don't know if I've ever felt this much joy and peace. I'm at rest, despite the fact that my surroundings might suggest otherwise. I'm excited and full of anticipation for what is to come in our lives!
There is so much good that has gone on, true miracles that I didn't know if I would ever see that I would love to share, but it's not mine to share so publicly so soon. Later on I'll be able to post it. :)
What I can say, and it's really the only important part anyway, is God is so good. He is so good to me, so good to my husband, so good to my family. I know that he has plans for us in Mexico, and I can't wait to walk in them.
He has had me in such a place of peace and joy, just so wrapped in his love, that I feel and experience it in a way that I never have before. It's like... I always had the right answers to the tough questions, and "knew" that God was my loving father instead of an angry judge, but I lived my life and expected those around me to live by the "right" set of rules. And now I know that this was actually evidence of the fact that it was only head knowledge and symptoms of the unexperienced truth of God's character. It was rhetoric. Man, I had no idea what it meant to know God's love. And it's like... He didn't just show me, he overwhelmed me. Overwhelmed me with his presence, with his embrace. I don't know how else to explain it... Except to say, God is so good. And that is a major understatement.
He showed me his love first in an experiential way, just a comfort and rest in knowing he was taking care of me, and revealing to me how sweet and what a blessing these last 8 months have truly been. And it was enough. It was more than enough. It was glorious. Then, he started actually taking care of things. Money is tight and I was just making it before we found out we would be moving to Mexico. Add on top of that plane tickets, passports, finishing paying off our immigration attorney, vet visits, survival money for Carlos until he gets a job, and another million seemingly endless things that you don't think about think about until it's time to go, and time-eaters, like driving back and forth THREE times to the passport office because of distraction and lack of paperwork. Like having to find a way to sell or give away a house full of items that have been accumulated over the course of a lifetime, piddly things and sentimental things. But in the end, they are just things.
Anyway, so Carlos and I decided we would sell my car without fixing it, since I can't take it with me, and I've been without it for the last 8 months anyway, it just wasn't worth it to come up with the money to fix it, only to then have to turn around and sell it. Just minor issues, something that anyone remotely handy around a car could fix in a matter of an hour or so, but unfortunately, I am NOT technically minded, haha. But the thought of selling the car was so daunting! How do I do it? What do I say? How do I explain what the problem is if I don't even understand it myself? So I sat on it for a few days, and then, out of the blue, I get a phone call from my niece (the car was being stored at her house) saying that she woke up to a note on the windshield of her car. A name and phone number of someone who drove by, saw the car, and was interested in buying it! And he paid exactly what I had in mind to sell it for! God. It was just God. He took all the "work" out of that, and just blessed us. Hopefully, my car will be a blessing to the man who bought it; it sure has been one to me all these years.
Before deciding to sell the car, I had received a message from a friend that someone was going to anonymously donate money to our Mexico trip and needs! WHAT?! And it was exactly the amount I had calculated needing in order to get everything done. Look, I really hate talking about money, it just makes me really uncomfortable, always has, so I avoid it at all costs. But, WHAT?! Unfortunately, despite my aversion to the subject, it is necessary in this world. And my heavenly father knows that. He didn't make me scrape and scrounge and beg (although I have before), he just ...gave it to me... and he is so good. To be honest, I am really glad it was "anonymous" because I would have a really hard time being face-to-face with that person(s), lol, just because, well, I don't know, it's weird. God is soooooo good. He just is. And not because of his benefits, but because of his relationship.
Am I getting too mushy? I don't want to be, as I really am not too much of an emotional person, but there just isn't another way to express it than this. And it's really awesome when God makes things so apparent, when he takes all the guess work out of it. I don't "deserve" any of this. I didn't work for it, thank God, that's too much pressure, and I don't handle "expectations" too well. Now if HE wants to do all the work for me? Go right ahead, you do it, you change my heart, you make it happen in me and for me. You be my Daddy, a Daddy who cares for his daughters, his sons. More than I care for mine. Now that's a thought... A scripture comes to my mind a lot lately,
"And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, "This is the way, walk in it," when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left. Then you will defile your carved idols overlaid with silver and your gold-plated metal images. You will scatter them as unclean things. You will say to them, "Be gone!" And he will give rain for the seed with which you sow the ground, and bread, the produce of the ground, which will be rich and plenteous... You shall have a song as in the night when a holy feast is kept, and gladness of heart, as when one sets out to the sound of the flute to go to the mountain of the Lord, to the Rock of Israel."
-Isaiah 30:20-23, 29
Again, a super long post, sorry about that. Maybe if I posted more often they wouldn't be so long, but alas, life calls... and children... and responsibilities... but this post has been running through my mind for a few weeks now, and I just had to get it out.
Love you all.
Holly, you have blessed me so much by writing this. It is an overwhelming feeling to know God's love and so hard to explain that peace beyond understanding when circumstances don't cause or support it. To know that it is just Him loving you. You have written words from my heart. A verse comes to my mind too, "out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks" Luke 6:45 Bless you today and always
ReplyDeleteThank you Suzanne... There is absolutely no reason, circumstantial reason at least, for this peace, and I am so amazed and blown away by the ways he shows me his affection, even deliberately in the middle of my fleshly tirades, haha. He is so good to me. Bless you too. :)
ReplyDelete