Ready or Not, It's 2010

I haven’t blogged in a while, and that is because I was having too much fun with lovely family and friends.

However, the fun seems to be over, or that is how I feel.

On January 2nd I came back home from a great New Year party – and I got sick with a cold, soar throat, runny nose, fever and headache. On January 3rd I celebrated the morning of my birthday in bed, while having a really hard time breathing. I am VERY thankful for my family and wonderful husband for attempting to make that day a special one anyways. I managed to have lunch with my family and opened great presents!!!

I AM SO BLESSED!

This week has been somewhat of a rollercoaster and I have been very discouraged at times (especially last night). I had applied to this wonderful job that I was super excited about, only to receive an email from the organization letting me know that they are pursuing other candidates.

Boo to them.

That kind of rejection has brought me many tears in the past couple of months and I am getting tired of it all. I find myself praying and asking God for direction and although I know He is listening I don’t always hear His voice.

These waves of emotions have been overwhelming, but I read some words from Pastor James MacDonald that really helped me this morning.

He wrote:

“Strength in Weakness

"Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you." - 1 Peter 5:5-7

How do people do it? How do they withstand the Katrina-like blows that pummel their lives? The wind, the waves, the surges of heartbreak one after another. How do they survive... and still lift their faces to the Lord? How can they be so strong at their extreme weakest?

Today was an awful day. Some very heavy things hit me off guard. But somewhere in the middle of that storm, God's voice was telling me that He provides sufficient grace for this trial, and when I am weak He is always and still very strong. So I want to say to the glory of God that if there is anything in this ministry that is powerful, it is from weakness. Trust me on that.

"Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me... For when I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Corinthians 12:9-10). Well, here I am - present and accounted for. It's the hard times and the unhealthy times and the hurting times that reveal my weaknesses. And it's also during those times that God shows up strong.

We often treat suffering like a dodgeball game. Anytime anything painful comes at us, we jump out of the way. We spend our whole lives trying to avoid anything that will hurt or be hard. But there's a better kind of life - a deeper, more fulfilling kind of life - that isn't about avoiding every pain. It's about finding God faithful and powerful in the midst of whatever thorns He allows.

There's something about our weakness that opens the flow of God's strength.

When you are in the midst of a trial, there's a power coming into your life that you've never experienced before. When you see a hard thing coming, try saying, "I may not want this, but I know I'm going to see Christ working in my life in an incredible way."

God never allows a thorn but that He provides sufficient grace and strength in our weaknesses. Sufficient grace is not just enough to survive, but enough to have supernatural joy in the midst of anything He allows us to go through.”

As hard as it might be, I want to have that supernatural joy. I want to be faithful when the circumstances are not optimal. I want to praise God and remember the ways He continues to bless me. I want to be near Him.