Nine Months

What can happen in nine months??? New life begins and forms and develops and is born in nine months. In nine months, the smallest of life forms grows into an incredible human being. In nine months, a persons life can be completely transformed.

Nine months ago today, my husband lost his job. Our world was turned upside down. I felt like I couldn't breath or sleep or wake up or walk or deal with reality those first few days. I remember totally introverting into myself for a few days and feeling the need to put up a wall around my shattered view of my life and what it had become. I was scared.

Thankfully the first few days, God held us tight. We had no answers to so many questions, but He held us close and the peace was thick. The support we felt from so many friends and family was completely overwhelming.

God slowly and surely showed us the path to walk. We couldn't see more than a few feet ahead of us, but we could see those few feet clearly and we walked the path God had laid out before us. And He slowly helped us make our way through the fog. We never saw more than a few days ahead of where we were. No plan was revealed until we absolutely needed it to be so. Sometimes it was to the wire, but He was never late.

In the last nine months, the miracles and blessings have been numerous. A few of the highlights:

1) We got to spend the entire summer and school breaks with James and the kids and I have loved him having a schedule where he could come eat lunch with us at school and spend extra time with us that we normally wouldn't have had.
2) A weeklong beach vacation we weren't expecting.
3) Hundreds of dollars being given to us anonomously on several different occassions.
4) James receiving thousands of dollars worth of invaluable training for free.
5) Being surrounded by strong prayer warriors who have undergirded and strengthened us.
6) Stronger walk with the Lord than any of us (our children included)could have imagined. My children's faith rock my world on a daily basis.
7)Financial provisions that have been nothing short of miraculous.

I could go on and on.

In nine months much can change and nine months later I wouldn't change the hardship of walking where we have walked. You know, I wouldn't have changed all the pain, sickness and bedrest I endured for nine months to get my kids either. It is only as we have walked through the trials and tribulations that we have seen the unbelievable faithfulness of God.

I lack for nothing, I want nothing, I need nothing...I have all that I need in the fullness of God and His Love.

James got a job last week. He starts next week. It is more than we could hope for and so much more than he had before. That shouldn't be surprising though. It IS one of God's promises.

May Christ through your faith [actually] dwell (settle down, abide, make His permanent home) in your hearts! May you be rooted deep in love and founded securely on love,

That you may have the power and be strong to apprehend and grasp with all the saints [God's devoted people, the experience of that love] what is the breadth and length and height and depth [of it];

[That you may really come] to know [practically, [e]through experience for yourselves] the love of Christ, which far surpasses [f]mere knowledge [without experience]; that you may be filled [through all your being] [g]unto all the fullness of God [may have the richest measure of the divine Presence, and [h]become a body wholly filled and flooded with God Himself]!

Now to Him Who, by (in consequence of) the [action of His] power that is at work within us, is able to [carry out His purpose and] do superabundantly, far over and above all that we [dare] ask or think [infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, hopes, or dreams]--

To Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen (so be it). Ephesians: 3: 18-21 (Amplified version)

Whose glasses are you wearing?

I was recently talking with my daughter about how she sees herself. Being eleven, beginning stages of puberty are hitting and girl drama never seems to be at an end. She was feeling kind of down and frustrated. She was dealing with the "enoughs". You know, "I'm not cute enough", "I'm not smart enough", "I'm not liked enough", etc. etc. etc. While talking with her I realized something. How many of us still deal with the "Enoughs" every day of our lives? The actual statements may change, but I bet most of us still deal with them. Those thoughts are definitely still there.

As we were talking an interesting thought struck me. I think many of us walk around wearing the glasses of someone else's perception. We pick up the glasses and look in the mirror and see ourselves as we perceive someone else sees us. We see the image of how we think our boss sees us, or how that co-worker that just doesn't like us sees us, or that mean girl who constantly puts us down sees us, or the bully on the playground sees us, or how we think a friend or family member who just doesn't get us sees us. These glasses give a distorted, perverted, almost 'fun-house' mirror image of ourselves. Where everything is out of proportion and nothing looks quite right. We walk around all day with these glasses on, thinking and stewing and fixating and telling ourselves, "This must be how I am".

The problem is, these glasses create lies. This is not how God sees us at all. These are not His glasses. He wants us to take off these glasses that create hurtful thoughts, lies, put-downs, untruths, and exaggerations. God didn't make these glasses and it isn't how He views us or created us at all! He wants each of us to every day see ourselves how HE sees us. He created us, He designed us, He knows us. We need to put on the glasses through which GOD sees us. Glasses where we see ourselves as fearfully and wonderfully made, perfect, bought with a price, and white as snow, glasses.

This scripture is one of my favorites and one I read to my children often. I want them to KNOW how their Father in Heaven sees them and let that seal their identity.

You have searched me, LORD,
and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue
you, LORD, know it completely.
You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.

Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
How precious to me are your thoughts,[a]God!
How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand—
when I awake, I am still with you.

Psalm 139:1-18

So, whose glasses are you wearing? If you don't see yourself as the One who created you sees you, please take off those distorted glasses and put on the glasses made by your Heavenly Father. And once HIS glasses are on, take a good look at the awesome person He created!