I know we all feel those times of desert-traveling.  When life feels like you are walking upstream, the water deep, the current stronger then weak legs can bear.  And we think as we struggle, “How did I get here?  Where did I make a wrong turn?”

It’s the striving that I feel is sin in my own life.  My life verse is Isaiah 30:15. “In repentance and rest is your salvation. In quietness and trust is your strength.” has absolutely NOTHING to do with striving.

Aren’t I taking over for God when I strive, when I struggle to figure a way out instead of resting and waiting for HIS deliverance?  How many miracles do I miss through striving?  What wisdom passes me by as my mind is turned away from Jesus and on myself?

During our move my peace has been a daily peace.  But right now I feel as if I am the proverbial broken vessel with no Jesus shining through.  I feel meanness and ugliness, my sin for all to see splashed like wine on a white carpet.  Noticeable.  Stained.  Ugly.

I try to tell myself that it’s in these moments that God shows up at His best. He breaks through the darkness and burst into my life with his unimaginable love and power.  I hope and I pray He’s setting me up for a miracle.  I need a miracle.  I want to see Him know me so well He shows up in the places my heart needs him the most.

Are you there God?

Do you see how my heart longs after you, after heaven, after life without this flesh?

Oh! for the day when all is as it should be.  Won’t we rejoice with millions upon millions who will indeed kneel and cry, “Holy, Holy, Holy!”.

I’m empty.  There’s very little mommy left.  Very little “house manager”.  Very little wife.  There’s not much there so I call on the only One who can fill me and still the holes remain.  What am I missing?

Rest, child.  Don’t strive.  Trust.  Quit trying to figure it out.

Wait on the Lord.

See that He is good.

Oh Father.  I need to see you.  It is my heart’s cry to you.  Hear my cry, oh Lord.  Come and rescue your child.

My birth father emailed me this today.  If you haven’t seen it please watch it.

The link is Where Is The Line to See Jesus?

And the story is beautiful.

The Scooper is writing about Faith today and since I, like her, watched Lee Kinard, the Channel 2 weatherman, track Santa across the world I thought I’d join her.

But first, a photo…

Unlike Scooper I can not remember how old I was when I stopped believing in Santa.  What I do remember is being sneaky and looking for gifts one year and then being so disappointed when those gifts showed up on Christmas morning from Santa.

When I think about the faith God has today graced me with I have to look backwards.  As a child I grew up in church, sang in the choir, went through confirmation (should I capitalize that?) but never learned that my relationship with Jesus was supposed to be a personal everyday type of relationship.  I believed in God but He seemed far away.  When the Bible was read it was done so in such a manner that it often seemed too holy for a commoner like me.  I remember a Book of Common Prayer.  I remember the Doxology.  Today it will bring me to my knees in the blink of an eye and means more to this commoner’s soul than my words can explain.

I visited a Baptist church while in the twelfth grade and felt God pull at my heart, drawing me into an intimate relationship with Him like I had never known before.  Two years passed and I tried my best to walk out what was in my heart.  But there was college and boys and parties and things I’d never experienced before.  Distractions – as they are now called.  I strayed.  And boy, did I stray.

Fast forward 10 years and I was a pretty miserable cat.  I had all the world told me I needed to be happy but I was miserable.  I had an excellent job in which I excelled.  I earned more money than I thought I would ever earn.  I had a boyfriend, a car, a cat.  What else was there to have?  I lived with the head knowledge and the heart knowledge that I would go to heaven if I died.  But something was missing.

I walked through the valley of the shadow death but I feared no evil.  Not for the right reasons but because I was walking with evil.  Hand in hand with it.  Never knowing -deceived.

Many scars later, loads of counseling and I began to realize the one thing I was missing was the thing I had found ten years ago as a senior in high school.  I was missing HIM.  Abba.  Father.  Lover of my soul.

Fast forward another fifteen years and I sit here typing to an unknown audience knowing that the One I trust trusts me.  I sit on that thought and am blown away that He knows He can accomplish all He wants to accomplish through me.  No, it won’t be perfect but it will be perfectly performed by the Master Creator.  It will work for His glory.  It has been, will be and forever shall be His design through me.

My story isn’t star-studded either.  As The Scooper says…..“My own story would probably be a more powerful one if I could tell you that Belief showed up in some magical, supernatural way with glitter and snow-dust and angels or in the midst of drugs and jail-time and a biker gang.” There was no glitter, no snow-dust, no jail time but there was an awakening.  A slow and sure awareness that I am to trust Him more and more with each passing day.  He is my all and all.  And when He isn’t ….. well, that sweet, wonderful, glittery, snow-dust, find-you-in-a-jail-cell Savior of mine gently reminds me.  “Come my child.  Come.  Break bread with me.  Sit with me.  Be still and know.  Let me fight.  I need you only to watch.  Believe.”

So with Scooper I wish you faith this Christmas season….

Childlike, sweet, peaceful, dancing in your pretty dress faith.

Yesterday we were surprised by a car repair bill of over 500$.

Can you say YIKES!

I could.
I did.
And I began praying.

Ok, so if I live what I preach there is no fear, there is only faith.
So I called on two friends to pray.  One friend and I coveted to pray for one another that day because she was in a financial bind too.  So I prayed for her and she prayed for me.

It was after one when the phone call came from a source I must keep anonymous.
"I’m sending you a check" she said.
"It will be in tomorrow’s mail."

Gasp.
Gulp.

Why am I consistently surprised when God pulls through?
Do I ever want to not be surprised?
Don’t I always want to be blown away by my Daddy, my Father, Abba?

So I called my friend and shared with her how God answered her prayers for me yesterday.  And of course she was encouraged, overwhelmed and blown away like I was.

He is so good to me.

On a side note….
I had the chance to photograph this handsome man the other day. 
I’m not sure he’s up for grabs ladies but you can enjoy looking anyway.

This morning I arose with my hubbie at the ripe ole hour of 6:30am.
My back has been bothering me lately and sometimes staying in bed in the morning just plain hurts.

So instead of trying to go back to sleep I decided to do something I haven’t done in a while…..

My bible study.
Imagine that……
A whole hour alone with God before the noise of the house began.  A cup of coffee.

My present Beth Moore study and my “barely held together” bible from my dear friend, Andrea, many years ago.  And guess what today’s lesson was about?  Judging others – that quick judgment that comes when we immediately size someone up based on how they look or how they are acting.  Talk about stepping on toes…..

Thank you God for allowing me the privilege of digging into your Word today.
Help me to yearn for you every day that way.