I'm just poking around here in the blogosphere, hoping to connect with a few like-minded people, to ruminate on the ups and downs of life.
If you'd like to join the kindred sojourners, sign up below... don't worry, this blog isn't monetized, and I promise I won't spam you because you signed up. I won't sell your name and email address to anybody else, either. If you do enter your email, watch for a follow-up email from Feedburner, asking you to confirm that you really do want to receive emails of each new post. It looks a bit spammy, but if you don't click to confirm, you won't get anything.
Being a simple sort of woman, I assume that since you clicked this link, you really do want to know something about me, so I shall simply dive in and try to pretend not to be self-conscious. (That is my husband and me, up there in the picture. My husband is a corker: handsome and smooth, intelligent and friendly. Also he is employed. He is pretty much the bomb-diggety.)
I am a Christian woman, mother of four children (who are mostly no longer children, having been born in 1989, 1991, 1992 and 1995). I used to dream of someday living in the country and having a stream, apple trees and a wood stove. I thought I would have liked a few chickens and a cow. My husband has always dreamed of living on a ham radio antenna farm.
Currently, we live hundreds of miles from people we are related to, including nearly all of our children. God is stretching us in ways we had never imagined possible, and we are learning through circumstances we would never have asked for.
Yet, God is faithful. His love is neverending, unfailing, and His faithfulness reaches to the skies. No matter what else comes, God will never leave us nor forsake us. My hope is in God alone.
I have a wandering child, a prodigal. That's all I will say about the circumstance, but I will tell you a little bit about what this has done to my heart.
My heart has been broken, utterly wrecked. Sometimes I feel as though I am being punished for every mistake I ever made. I occasionally fall into the sloughs of despair. It is hard to look at this situation and remember that God has forgiven me, accepted me, and that He loves me.
But He has, and He does. This is the truth. There is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. If God is for us, who can stand against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also along with Him, graciously give us all things? (I get a lot out of Romans 8 these days.)
Even in the midst of grief, I can draw near to God, and He will fill me with His Holy Spirit, with peace, joy and hope. He will empower me to get up and live another day for Him, drawing me ever nearer to His heart and His righteousness. My heart has been wrecked, but God is knitting it back together again, and I trust that He is transforming me to be more and more Christlike in the process, because that is what He promises to do.
In the past, I spent many years as a children's Sunday school teacher and a Bible study teacher for ladies. These days, I don't have opportunities to teach, and I mostly realize that I don't know much. Except, I do know that there is Truth, Truth about God that has stood firm throughout all the years, years when I was young and relatively green, and years where I have been stretched to grow, not altogether willingly. Still, as I grow, I find myself returning to solid truths that I always knew. Except, there is a difference between simply knowing a truth, and the depth of knowing which you achieve by grappling with the same truth through trying times. You know it, you practice it, and then you know it in a new way. I think that may be what is happening to me.
I think also, if you are person who tends not to be as compassionate as you could be, God has a way of bringing the need for that compassion right into the heart of your life, possibly through a family member. I am speaking of my personal experience.
If you--like me--are a person who asks for humility but struggles with pride, God will work the pride out of you in answer to your prayer. This may be tremendously painful. You may not like it. But you (I) must learn to accept the pain with trust that the Lord is, indeed, full of love and compassion and only works for our best interest and the ultimate display of His glory and grace.
Someday I hope to return to this page and rewrite it to proclaim the glorious miracles that God has done in my family. Until then, I proclaim His unfailing love and abiding presence in my life as He faithfully teaches me the things I need to learn.
I may never have chickens or apple trees.
All I need is Christ.
