Expecting Glory…

Today is Friday.  We write free and bold and with out self-editing.  For five whole minutes.

Today’s word: Expectation

Ready?

Set…

Go!

Expectation.  Is it bad? Is it good? I don’t know.  Expectations often lead to disappointment and embarrassment.  Expectations often lead to sadness and despair.  We want what we want.  We expect good things to happen, then they don’t.  We expect God to take care of us…and He does.  Expectations of God are a tricky thing.  He never promised us a rosy life, but He did promise that He would always be there.  He did promise that he would always walk through “it” with us.  He did promise that He would carry us when we needed Him (whether we knew it or not).  He did promise that give us just the right amount of strength and grace to get through the storms in life.  Those are expectations we can take to the bank.  We can cash in those promises.  We can expect to survive this life as we walk with expectation into the next.  We can expect that God will show up in our deepest, darkest moments.  We can expect that he will do what He says He will do.  Because He is Who He is.  He is the Creator of the Universe after all.  He is what least expect Him to be and more.  He is mother and father to us all.  He is gentle friend and firm counselor.  We can expect the best from Him.  We can expect to shine out His glory in our life.

Monday Morning Meditation- Promise

God. Never. Breaks. A. Promise.

Ever.

He can’t.  He’s not human.  Humans break promises all of the time.  God never does.  Which is why we can rely fully and totally on His promises.

While I was considering what was on my mind about God and his promises my mind went to Abraham.  “Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”¹⁹ Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. ²⁰ Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, ²¹ being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.” (Rom 4:18-21)

Against all odds, poor decisions, and time, God still delivered on his promise to Abraham, even when it looked like it couldn’t possibly happen.  Even when the world could look at the circumstances and say, “Nope. Ain’t gonna happen.”  Sarah bore Abraham a son in their (very) old age.  Abraham did become the father of the many hundreds of millions.  Even when God told him to sacrifice his son, he still had hope and trusted in the promise.  Else, he wouldn’t have journeyed up the mountain.

Sometimes in my life I forget that God never breaks promises.  He ALWAYS delivers.  Just not always when I THINK he should.  And that’s the hard part. Waiting.  Trusting.  Hoping.  Faith in God’s promises.  That he WILL deliver, at the exact moment he intends to.

Lord, help me to trust and to hold on just a little longer while waiting for you to do what  you promised.

Telling my story, part 2

I had a bad day yesterday.  It took extra effort to stay sane and focused and not allow the dissociation to overwhelm me.  Writing what little I did write was very hard for me.  The good news is that I have a counseling appointment with a professional tonight.

The healing journey can begin…again.

You know that expression “darkest hour is just before the dawn”?  I am in that moment.  I cannot see what is going on right now, nor what is coming.  I simply trust that it is good because I have nowhere else to go.  It is only the grace of God holding back the flood of emotions and feelings that can and will overwhelm me during my counseling sessions.  They should overwhelm me in God’s presence, because that is the place of healing.  My little 3-year old self cannot, and does not want to, hide any longer in the shadows.  Now is her time to come out and be present.  Now is her time to be part of the bigger picture I call my life.  It is time for this final piece to come back to me and be part of my life.

I am waiting for the dawn.

Monday Morning Meditations

I am trying something new here.  I am giving myself a one-word prompt and will just write until I am done writing.  Sort of like the Gypsy Mama’s 5 minute friday, except I will place no time limit on myself.  But, I will not try to think to hard about what to say and will just write.

Honey

Sweet.

Good for me.

At least, not as bad as sugar.

God thinks it’s great enough to say “A land flowing with milk AND honey.”

Honey is part of the promised land.

Sweet. Good for me.  Fulfilling a promise given a long time ago.

Golden.

Pure.

Sweet.

Like God.

Only God is better.

Honey.

Pure love given to me as a promise of plenty and peace.

Sweet.

Honey.

Golden and pure like the sunrise in the East.  Bringing promises of peace and plenty.

Sweet.

Jesus’ love for me that lead to a final sacrifice.

Undeserved by me.

Sweet.

Being with the Father IS the promised land.

Honey.

Pure and sweet.  Golden like the streets of Heaven (so I hear).

A promise to be with the father forever.

Honey from the promised land of peace and plenty.

May I rest in your Glory today Father.

May I feast on your honey.  Sweet. Pure. Golden. Delicious.

Sweet.

Honey.

Milk

I had no ideas about what to write so I asked the Lord for something to write about.  Four words came to mind: milk, honey, plenty, and promise.  These words obviously go together (Promised Land anyone?), but I believe I am supposed to write from heart about them individually.

The word milk automatically makes me think of the Promised Land.  Moses was sent to bring his people to the land “flowing with milk and honey”.  Evidently God sees this as a good thing.  The one thing that speaks to me about the Promised Land was that everything that the Israelites was available to them in this land, if they just did what God told them to do.  The Israelites had a hard time doing this because it took them 40 years to get there.  But they did get there.

I often see myself as one of the wandering Israelites waiting to get to what God has promised me.  In my mind I can just see over the cliff, just enough to know that the promise is there.  I wonder when I will ever get there.  I ask God, “Haven’t I done enough now?”.  I am so ready for the promises.  I am so ready to be there in the Promised Land.  When can I go Lord?

It occurs to me that perhaps I am already there.  I am like a blind beggar sitting in the lush landscape begging for a scrap.  Satan has feed me enough lies that I believe in my blindness as my reality.  I can just smell the flowing milk and honey, but I have yet to taste it.  Perhaps if I stopped believing I was blind and poor, I might be able to partake in the feast before me.

When I accepted Jesus into my heart, I had access to the abundance of God.  Yet, my heart believed that I was not good enough, or clean enough, or whatever enough to take what is rightfully mine.  I could not tap into the infinite and good resources available to me because I believed the darkness more than I believed the light.

Today, I ask you Lord to take the scales from my eyes so that I can see and partake in all that you have given to me.  Amen.

Day 11 of Just Write!- Wedding

If  you have been following this at all, you know the drill about what I am doing.  If not, click here.

Wedding

I was lying in bed thinking about my wedding day.  I had asked the Lord for a perfect day, and I got one.  My husband-to-be insisted that our ceremony take place outdoors in a place special to him.  Questions about the weather came up “What if it rains?” was the biggest one of all.  I fussed about this for awhile.  Then I prayed and asked the Lord for a perfect day.  He told me it would be perfect. This was several months before our April wedding, so I had to take this on faith.  My groom also took this on faith.  People would ask me about wedding plans, I would tell them and the inevitable question would come “What if it rains?”.  I would say, “I already know the weather report, it’s gonna be sunny, 70 and a little bit breezy.”  There were many times over the months till our wedding day that I wondered if I had heard wrong, and what would I do if it did rain?  Yet, something inside of stubbornly clung to the weather report for that day.  The eve of my wedding was fraught with anxiety about all sorts of things, but not the weather.  It might have crossed  my mind a couple of times, but I fretted more about a good night’s sleep and who was coming to the wedding than I did about the weather.  The morning of the wedding the sky was clear and bright blue.  As the sun rose in the sky, the temperature rose to about 70 degrees and there was a little breeze gusting gently around the waiting guests.  It was a perfect day.

Joy- Day 4 of the Just Write! campaign

Welcome to day 4 of the Just Write! campaign here at Beauty in it’s time.  Mary Kathryn Tyson is hosting this campaign in an effort to get her creative juices flowing, and other people’s as well.  I have chosen to participate because I need a kick in the rear to get myself writing more frequently.  So,everyday that she does this she will give us a one-word prompt and we “JustWrite!” for five minutes without editing (note: editing for grammar errors is okay, just don’t do a total rewrite). We are not trying to craft masterpieces here, we are attempting to “Just Write!” and get the creative juices flowing. MK has offered to allow us to write in her comments section, or to put a link in her comments if we have our own blog to write in.

Joy

Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.  So, weeping is okay, but a promise of joy comes after the weeping.  Joy is a promise, an eternal promise.  We do not have to earn joy, it is just ours for the taking.  Joy is a state of mind that can last through the days, weeks, months, and years.  Joy has very little to do with happiness.  Happiness is like the wind, it comes quickly and recedes just as readily.  Joy can withstand the ups and downs of life.  Joy is about trust.  Trusting God that He has got it all covered.  Trusting that there is nothing to worry about.  Trusting that “all things work together for the good of those who LOVE the Lord.”  Joy is not dependent on happiness to exist.  Otherwise, we could not trust God’s promise of joy.  But we can trust God’s promises, because, well, because HE is GOD.  Thank you Jesus for making  my joy complete, even when I cannot feel it.