Amazing Love

Amazing Love, this totally describes it. All my life I have been told of God's amazing love for me. And in some form or another I have believed it. But this day I KNOW IT. Wholly, totally, amazingly God loves me and actually wants a relationship with me enough that His son died for me. This is the love greater then any romantic notion I have searched for. Greater then being loved and accepted as a wife, as a mother, as a woman. I am loved and what this love asks for in return is devotion. Total and complete devotion. Now what sane person wouldn't give to this kind of incredible love? Apparently I wouldn't.

Too many years and consequences have been wasted and piled up in my search for the Love that was right in front of my face all along! On this day I rejoice in the knowledge that I am His and He is mine. and in this Faith, life has a totally different meaning. Old truths have a whole new ring to them. I anxiously await Sundays. I love my lunch time reads as I learn more about my savior through His word He left us. It is Amazing to be washed clean from the sin and selfishness that had taken ahold of my life. Amazing!

I am reading through the Gospels. I am hit, moved to tears by the Love John had for his master and messiah and friend. He got to know Jesus on a level that we won't quite reach. But what Love our Jesus inspired in these men. They left all for Him. They changed their lives one-hundred and eighty degrees. They Loved Him. John couldn't even leave the area when his messiah was killed and buried. He was stunned, lost, grieved. He was right there waiting. Devoted. I am seeing the Gospels come alive in my very hands. Jesus was on this earth loving people, changing lives, healing, loving, guiding and God lets us see it all right in his Word.

I am new, in this Love forsaking all. Submitted to Him. Expecting miracles. My life no longer belongs to me and it is the most Amazing thing that has ever happened to me. Thank You Jesus. My savior, my father, my friend.

Just a little bit of where I am at. . . got to go. Luke awaits!

a complete circle?

At this moment I feel as if I have done a complete circle in my life, landing closer to my beginning then ever before. And all I have to say about that is GOD. . .

He is, He was and Is now and evermore.

I was mad, I was hurt, I was so disappointed, I walked away. I am a control freak I have been told! What? just cause I like to have things done in a timely matter and done right and done in the way that makes perfect sense? Ha HA haha, Ok so I jump in and take control. I was in perfect control of my christianity, my forgiveness, my mothering, my "wifeing" until I couldn't cope and became so overwhelmed and bitter it didn't matter anymore. God ceased to matter cause I couldn't understand or make Him and His ways fit into my ordered little sphere. And dang it! I had it in control. Until my ways began their steady circle seeking ever outward away from the source of true life. On this path control is still a possibility, but is real happiness? Deep fulfilling contentment?

Now realistically I understand my little take charge personality is a gift and can be quite useful but also a burden and stumbling block. God made me exactly who I am for a reason I believe. But wow this place I am at at this moment is completely crazy and out of control! I have no say, I have given it to Him. I am handing over these reins and totally terrified but feeling and believing in real peace. The first real Peace in many years. "Jesus take the wheel".

For me it is daily, hourly, minute by minute I must unclasp each finger as I try to grab or make suggestions, give my opinion or butt in again. But I think I am finally getting the true message of faith. Forsaking ALL I Trust Him. And mostly ALL to me is self. Self that has been in charge too long. Self who thought I had the answers right and the plan and the understanding of who God was. Ha Ha HA I am naive. . .

How can He, the creator ever be glorified when I give up ON HIM? So from the beginning I start, full circle, IN HIM ALL THINGS ARE A POSSIBILITY. I want a life that brings glory to the ultimate being IN CONTROL and only through HIM will this happen. I am ready. . . full-circle, minute by minute, fingers unclenching. Grace, forgiveness, truth, mercy and submission dear God. Learning about Trust , to trust the only One worthy of it.

I give you this beat up sad broken heart with excitement and fear. And I accept your gift, with deep undeserving trembling joy. And again life goes onward. . .

A little story

This is a sweet story someone sent me and it is such a good reminder of even when all feels lost. . . it isn't! Just thought I would share it, I have a hard time crying at this time in my life but God's faithfulness and the goodness of some people did bring tears to my eyes and reminded me my heart is still alive though at times it feels so broken.

In September 1960, I woke up one morning with six hungry babies and just 75 cents in my pocket. Their father was gone.The boys ranged from three months to seven years; their sister was two... Their Dad had never been much more than a presence they feared. Whenever they heard his tires crunch on the gravel driveway they would scramble to hide under their beds.He did manage to leave $15 a week to buy groceries.
Now that he had decided to leave, there would be no more beatings, but no food either.If there was a welfare system in effect in southern Indiana at that time, I certainly knew nothing about it. I scrubbed the kids until they looked brand new and then put on my best homemade dress, loaded them into the rusty old 51 Chevy and drove off to find a job. The seven of us went to every factory, store and restaurant in our small town. No luck.The kids stayed crammed into the car and tried to be quiet while I tried to convince who ever would listen that I was willing to learn or do anything. I had to have a job.Still no luck.
The last place we went to, just a few miles out of town, was an old Root Beer Barrel drive-in that had been converted to a truck stop. It was called the Big Wheel. An old lady named Granny owned the place and she peeked out of the window from time to time at all those kids. She needed someone on the graveyard shift, 11 at night until seven in the morning. She paid 65 cents an hour, and I could start that night. I raced home and called the teenager down the street that baby-sat for people. I bargained with her to come and sleep on my sofa for a dollar a night... She could arrive with her pajamas on and the kids would already be asleep. This seemed like a good arrangement to her, so we made a deal.
That night when the little ones and I knelt to say our prayers, we all thanked God for finding Mommy a job. And so I started at the Big Wheel. When I got home in the mornings I woke the baby-sitter up and senthome with one dollar of my tip money-- fully half of what I averaged every night. As the weeks went by, heating bills added a strain to my meager wage.
The tires on the old Chevy had the consistency of penny balloons and began to leak. I had to fill them with air on the way to work and again every morning before I could go home. One bleak fall morning, I dragged myself to the car to go home and found four tires in the back seat. New tires!There was no note, no nothing, just those beautiful brand new tires. Had angels taken up residence in Indiana ? I wondered.I made a deal with the local service station. In exchange for his mounting the new tires, I would clean up his office. I remember it took me a lot longer to scrub his floor than it did for him to do the tires.
I was now working six nights instead of five and it still wasn't enough. Christmas was coming and I knew there would be no money for toys for the kids . I found a can of red paint and started repairing and painting some old toys. Then I hid them in the basement so there would be something for Santa to deliver on Christmas morning. Clothes were a worry too. I was sewing patches on top of patches on the boys pants and soon they would be too far gone to repair.
On Christmas Eve the usual customers were drinking coffee in the Big Wheel. There were the truckers, Les, Frank, and Jim, and a state trooper named Joe. A few musicians were hanging around after a gig at the Legion and were dropping nickels in the pinball machine. The regulars all just sat around and talked through the wee hours of the morning and then left to get home before the sun came up. When it was time for me to go home at seven o'clock on Christmas morning, to my amazement, my old battered Chevy was filled full to the top with boxes of all shapes and sizes. I quickly opened the driver's side door, crawled inside and kneeled in the front facing the back seat.Reaching back, I pulled off the lid of the top box. Inside was whole case of little blue jeans, sizes 2-10! I looked inside another box: It was full of shirts to go with the jeans. Then I peeked inside some of the other boxes. There was candy and nuts and bananas and bags of groceries. There was an enormous ham for baking, and canned vegetables and potatoes. There was pudding and Jell-O and cookies, pie filling and flour. There was whole bag of laundry supplies and cleaning items. And there were fiv e toy trucks and one beautiful little doll.
As I drove back through empty streets as the sun slowly rose on the most amazing Christmas Day of my life, I was sobbing with gratitude. And I will never forget the joy on the faces of my little ones that precious morning.Yes, there were angels in Indiana that long-ago December. And they all hung out at the Big Wheel truck stop......

And so it begins. . .

I think my favorite punctuation is this . . .
It leaves so much left to say and left to do and hope that there is more to be discovered or thought about. And right now I find that is my life, nothing more then. . . i love these three little dots so much more friendly and wonderful then one dot alone that closes the door and ends things completely!

So blogging is theraputic right? I hope so, though personally I think it should be called "venting". It seems to help people cope and release inner "stuff" that has nowhere else to go. It is a communication tool when we can't wrap words around things. So that is what I will do blog and hope that in the venting of words and writing of thoughts I can find some inner peace and sanity.
Yup. . . and so it begins. . .