In His presence is fullness of joy

Wow, another week has passed since I've blogged--or even looked at my blog, I think... Time is going by so crazy fast around here. Days have been coming and going and my time and my heart have been full. I think I'm going to have to get the hang of scheduling my blogs because it seems like I only ever have time to blog on the weekends, and then I'll put out a cluster of posts and not look at my page again until another week has passed us by.  But I'll have to get caught up before I do that because if I'm already a week behind, and then I schedule my blogs for the following week, it's going to be old news by the time it gets posted.  I'll get the hang of this eventually. I've still been plugging my way through "One Thousand Gifts" by Ann Voskamp.  Not to sound like a broken record, but if you haven't gotten your copy yet, go for it.  It really is full of life-changing truth.  So much so, that I find myself working my way through it slowly.  I hear so many people saying they couldn't put it down and they devoured it in a day...and I think that's great.  Somehow, where I am in my life right now, my heart isn't ready to embrace gratitude every day.  It really has been a journey for me.  It's something that I want.  But I also find myself very much wanting control...and I can't have it.   In Ann's book, she says:  "Why do I lunge for control instead of joy?"  I've read that sentence so many times.  Isn't that what we do?  With fists clenched tight and knuckles white, we hold on...as if our feeble attempts at holding on made a difference somehow...  Why is that our natural reaction?  When we claim to believe in a good God who is always in control, why do we instinctively try to force our will instead of looking for Him in our circumstances?   So, this is a life lesson that I desperately want to learn.  Some days are better than others as I continue to try to be thankful in the little things. Yesterday was a hard day.  It seemed to drag on forever.  After a couple restless nights this week, I was beat, and by the time our Bible study rolled around I felt completely spent.  Usually, it only takes a short time before I'm so caught up in company that I forget I'm tired, but that wasn't the case last night.  I was one of those nights when I was thankful to have people in my home, and glad they were having a good time, but I really did want to tuck away alone, and that feeling didn't go away.  I found myself thinking, "I will be so thankful when I can cuddle up next to my hubby in our warm bed."  This morning, when I was getting ready for the day, I thought back to last night and I was so disappointed.  I realized that by the time we finally got to bed last night, it was nearly 1am, and I guess I just crashed.  I had forgotten to be thankful...and I was so disappointed that I had forgotten to take the time to thank the Lord for the much needed rest that I had looked forward to all day yesterday. So, this is good to see that at least my heart is really wanting to see God's goodness and be thankful. It's so important to be thankful.  I'm convinced that when it comes to gratitude, there really is no middle ground.  If you're not thankful, you will eventually become unthankful, and then bitter, and if you go too far down that road, I really think you will grow blind to the many good things that God gives. Well, I'll leave you with another quote from the book:  "If I am rejecting the joy that is hidden somewhere deep in this moment--am I not ultimately rejecting God? . . .  In His presence is fullness of joy."  

Another book from God...

 

God has been sending me books lately...

 it's kinda weird... but really special... When everywhere you look, God is telling you the same things... over and over.   For one thing, it's really awesome to know that we serve the living God...a God who still speaks to hearts and whose hand is still at work in the lives of His children. Sorta funny though because this heavenly Father knows that I'm not always quick to embrace the message He's trying to get across to me.  And so, if His Word isn't enough, then He'll send me a book.  And if sending me one book isn't enough, He'll send another one. Okay...I think I'm getting the message. ...I think.  :-) So, He's been sending me little reminders here and there to show me how to truly follow Him, and in the process, let go of some things in this world that I've been clinging too tightly to, so that I am free to love Him more completely.  

 

Looking for jewels...

 

 I haven't been updating my blog as much as I would like... and that's partially due to the fact that I recently started a private blog as a spiritual journal. There's been a lot going on in my heart, but a lot of it isn't the kind of stuff that I would post on a public blog... Not because it's scandalous or even that intensely personal... But honestly, a lot of things in my life look an awful lot like ashes right now. A blog should be genuine... But I want my blog to be filled with words of praise and gratitude. Not ashes. But one thing that I've learned is that some of the most beautiful things in my life have risen up out of the ashes.  Mmm hmm...that's where the blog's name came from--you're catching on!  Because...there are almost always jewels in the ashes if you are looking for them.  But you have to look for them.  Sometimes, you have to dig for them.  But they're there just the same, and when your heart wells up with praise to the Lord for the smallest jewel in the midst of the ashes, that is beautiful... . . .  If you read this post, you remember that I've been reading a book called, "One Thousand Gifts"  The Lord has used this book to remind me to be looking for all of the little blessings in my life from day to day...  All of the abundant blessings that are so far beyond anything I could ever deserve... to get my mind off of the ashes... I want my lips to praise the Lord continually. I don't know about you, but I used to sometimes feel a twinge of guilt when I praised the Lord for certain comforts in life.  It seemed somehow shallow or selfish to praise the Lord for peace or safety when everyone knows that true character rejoices in tribulation.  Am I a shallow Christian if my heart spills over with gratitude over trivial things? Early on in the book, Ann Voskamp addresses this question when her heart welled up with thanks while preparing a simple homemade pizza for her family: "I think how God-glory in a cheese ring might seem trifling.  Even offensive, to focus the lens of a heart on the minute, in a world mangled and maimed and desperately empty.  I know there is poor and hideous suffering, and I've seen the hungry and the guns that go to war.  I have lived pain, and my life can tell: I only deepen the wound of the world when I neglect to give thanks for early light dappled through leaves and the heavy perfume of wild roses in early July...and the rivers that run and the stars that rise and the rain that falls and all the good things that a good God gives." I found comfort in her words, and I felt challenged to begin my own journey of counting "one thousand gifts" (you'll understand this better if you read the book). So, I intend to keep a gratitude journal of life's blessings--both big and small--from day to day. Because God is good.  Why not list thousands (upon thousands) of reasons why I should praise Him? Mmm...and another quote from Ann...  Remembering why we praise God. "God is not in need of magnifying by us so small, but the reverse.  It's our lives that are little and we have falsely inflated self...  In thanks we decrease and the world returns right." Somewhere along the line, humankind got the idea that we deserve something more than ashes...when in reality an eternity of ashes would be perfectly suited to what we deserve.  When we get a right perspective on who we are, and a right perspective on who God is, we can truly praise Him in any circumstances.  It is then that we can find the beauty in the ashes... When it's appropriate, I may post random tidbits from my gratitude journal on my blog.  I'd love to hear yours as well. And if your life looks like ashes right now... Join me.  Let's start looking for jewels.  :-) 

A book from God...

 Today has been one of those days... ...one of those days when you just take a step back and wonder what God has in mind... Because in my heart, I know He is good... ...but I can't help but think that if it were up to me, I would do things differently...  Of course, it's not up to me.  So...my part is to trust Him.  God knew that I was going to have this day. It was all part of His plan when, a couple of months ago, I pre-ordered a book from Amazon.  A book that I pretty much forgot that I ordered.  But a book that God knew that I needed today. Here are a few excerpts from this book.  I hope it will encourage you...and maybe even entice you to get your own copy.  Because I've only read one chapter, but I can tell it's a good book. "Can there be a good God?  A God who graces with good gifts when a crib lies empty through long nights, and bugs burrow through coffins?  Where is God, really?  How can He be good when babies die, and marriages implode, and dreams blow away, dust in the wind?  Where is grace bestowed when cancer gnaws and loneliness aches and nameless places in us soundlessly die, break off without reason, erode away.  Where hides this joy of the Lord, this God who fills the earth with good things, and how do I fully live when life is full of hurt?"  "Like all beliefs, you simply live them... We live with our hands clenched tight...  No, God...  Is this the toxic air of the world, this atmosphere we inhale, burning into our lungs, this No, God?  No, God, we won't take what you give... No, God, this is ugly and this is a mess and can't You get anything right and just haul this pain out of here and I'll take it from here, thanks..." "...I believe the Serpant's hissing lie, the repeating refrain through the ages: God isn't good...  Doubting God's goodness, distrusting His intent, discontented with what He's given, we desire more...  Our fall was, has always been, and always will be, that we aren't satisfied in God and what He gives.  We hunger for something more, something other...  We were lured by the deception that there was more to a full life...  And true, there was more to see:  the ugliness we hadn't beheld...the loss we hadn't known." "It is one thing to choose to take the grace offered at the cross.  But to choose to live as one filled with His grace? ...It is a choice.  Choose to say yes to what He freely gives...  If I don't, I am still making a choice.  The choice not to." "That which tears open our souls...may actually become the thin, open places to see through the mess of this place to the heart-aching beauty beyond.  To Him.  To the God whom we endlessly crave.  But how?  How do we choose to allow the holes to become seeing-through-to-God places? ... How do I give up resentment for gratitude, gnawing anger for spilling joy?  Self-focus for God-communion.  To fully live--to live full of grace and joy and all that is beauty eternal.  It is possible...  I now see and testify.  So this story--my story.  A dare to an emptier, fuller life."    All excerpts taken from "One Thousand Gifts" by Ann Voskamp:  buy it on Amazon.com