Words From Wise Ones

Sometimes Charles Spurgeon gets it just right where others fail:

God often takes away our comforts and our privileges in order to make us better Christians. He trains his soldiers, not in tents of ease and luxury, but by turning them out and using them to forced marches and hard service. He makes them ford through streams, and swim through rivers, and climb mountains, and walk many a long mile with heavy knapsacks of sorrow on their backs. Well, Christian, may not this account for the troubles through which thou art passing? Is not the Lord bringing out your graces, and making them grow? Is not this the reason why he is contending with you?

"Trials make the promise sweet;
Trials give new life to prayer;
Trials bring me to his feet,
Lay me low, and keep me there."

This may bother some folks, but right now it is a comfort to me. And to some folks I would say, like God said to Job:

"Will the faultfinder contend with the Almighty?
     Let him who reproves God answer it....
"Now gird up your loins like a man;
     I will ask you, and you instruct Me.
"Will you really annul My judgment?
     Will you condemn Me that you may be justified?
"Or do you have an arm like God,
     And can you thunder with a voice like His?
"Adorn yourself with eminence and dignity,
     And clothe yourself with honor and majesty.
"Pour out the overflowings of your anger,
      And look on everyone who is proud, and make him low.
"Look on everyone who is proud, and humble him,
     And tread down the wicked where they stand.
"Hide them in the dust together;
     Bind them in the hidden place.
"Then I will also confess to you,
     That your own right hand can save you."

And though I have complained at times, I say with Job:

"I know that You can do all things,
     And that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.
'Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?'
     "Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand,
          Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know."
'Hear, now, and I will speak;
     I will ask You, and You instruct me.'
"I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear;
     But now my eye sees You;
Therefore I retract,
     And I repent in dust and ashes."

For I am trusting that like Job, the LORD will bless my latter days more than my beginning. And I am following the Song of the King, not the song of the Hopenots.

It helps more if you are going to sing, if you will please sing the first, and not the second. I'm not a fan of Charles Ives, and I have very finely tuned musical ears, so more than one song at a time just reeeeeeally bothers me. Ya know.

Thanks. Won't you join me?

Simply singing,
Patty

A letter to my friends

Dear Friends,

I wanted to keep you in the picture where my own emotional state is, as I know you all have prayed about that too. 

Yesterday, I woke up around 3:15am, and started crying because I couldn't give my little girl a party for her birthday, or even go and see her, or wish her happy birthday and expect she will see it. So I started praying, and searching the Scriptures, and waiting on the Lord. For two hours I did this. I posted "I love you" all down her Facebook wall, in hopes somehow she could see it, but I don't think she looks at it anymore at all.

Then, around 5:30am, as I was reading the Psalms, God brought to me over and over certain ones of the songs He gave his people all those centuries ago that exactly speak to my situation. I pondered this, and other evidences of God's love in my life recently, and understood that He wants me to TRUST Him. My daughter had given me some warning of all this, a couple weeks before it happened. But being Christmas and New Year's, I had pushed it all into the back of my mind (which was, I'm sure, what some intended). I reviewed her words to me, as far as I can remember them in my addled brain, and the word that most came to the fore was TRUST. She wanted us to trust her. And so I have decided to do just that, really trusting in GOD'S ability to keep her safe, and her intention not to harm us whom she loves. She made me understand then that she wanted to keep us from any more pain and hardship than was necessary.

I believed then that she was getting into some kind of trouble, but didn't know what, nor how to get her to listen to me, so didn't push it at the time. And the holidays sent it clean out of my mind, together with a life decision I was working on, and an unexpected, positive, life-changing experience. For this I have been full of guilt at times, as the enemy hurls his darts at me. But God is faithful to remind me of His forgiveness, and gives the peace which passes all understanding in this situation. I know I am loved with a love as vast as the ocean, and I know I am in the center of His will, seeking a way to serve Him completely at last.

And so I came to peace in the end, TRUSTING in God's almighty hand on my daughter, TRUSTING the Spirit within her, TRUSTING her own intentions as they are good. If the lesson in TRUST had not begun in December, I do not know if I would have been able to face yesterday. But God is able, who delivers me from the wily snares of the enemy. And His timing is oh! so perfect!

And so throughout her birthday, I was given guidance and assurance that I could rest on His unchanging love, and I laid down the heavy burden of rescuing my daughter from the place she'd got herself by her ignorance of the world, and took up the burden which is light, which is simply TRUSTING the omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence of the God of the universe instead.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow,
Praise God all creatures here below.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Praise God, the Source of all our gifts,
Praise Jesus Christ, whose power uplifts,
Praise the Spirit, Holy Spirit,
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!!

Simply loved,
Patty