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it is the home stretch of school and i am so ready for summer! i am having a hard time with these long sunlit evenings to get the kids to bed for the early mornings. i love to spend time with my kids and i am so excited for them to be home and doing fun things together!
to kick off the summer (though we still have 3 days of school left) we went cherry picking on saturday morning. we filled 2.5 buckets of cherries and only paid $21. after sorting through the berries i found we had about 17 baskets filled! i would way that was pretty good. besides getting a ton of great summer fruit, we had a great time as a family. it's memory making and a yummy way to make memories by picking fresh fruit. do you know your farmer?
now what i really want to write about is the overwhelming absolute goodness and kindness of our God. do you know His very real kindness in every circumstance? i am rejoicing extra in Him today because of our present trials.
we woke up this morning to our jeep wrangler missing from the front of our house. yep, it was stolen. after all that has happened over the last couple weeks i have to be honest with you that i wasn't terribly surprised. this is not said in a pessimistic way at all. i have been asking the Lord to be my Rock that i build on alone and that i wouldn't be so attached to the things of this world.
just yesterday morning i posted on our facebook page (are you part of our growing community yet?) a passage in revelation 3 that was a warning to one of the seven churches about how she had grown lukewarm. in His incredible mercy and kindness, Jesus warned this church that her eyes had become distracted by riches and thinking she had all she needed in wealth of the world in the now. what she did not realizing was the true broken state she was in. reading this yesterday morning i prayed, God, don't let me be blinded! i want to be rich in you and it that means breaking my grip on my stuff now, then please do it!
you see, in our house of prayer community and on this blog as well we talk a lot about having our hope anchored in the Day of the Lord. i talk a lot about Jesus being my inheritance and my exceedingly great reward. yet i don't want to stand before Him when He returns and find out that my life really was just a bunch of good talk without the reality of living the message behind it. i don't want to have a reputation for being alive, but being dead on the inside (a warning Jesus gave another one of the seven churches)!
so today, i thank Him in true sincerity for the opportunity for my heart to be tested now. am i willing to live the message of having my hope anchored in His coming? i get the opportunity to bless my enemy and pray for his (or her) repentance and salvation from the lake of fire. i get to ask that the Lord uses this not only to refine my heart and love for Him, but to draw the thief to Himself and ask that he would choose to leave his life of sin and follow Jesus.
of course i would love for the police to find our jeep and return it. i would love for the thief himself to repent and return it himself.
but my hope doesn't lie in justice right now - my hope lies in the One who will make all the wrong things right once and for all when He steps foot again on this fallen earth and sets up His righteous kingdom.
this is what i eagerly wait for - and if someone takes my stuff i choose to rejoice in my God for He is good and He is for me and not against me. He gives me the opportunity to choose Him first with my real life and not just with my words. i get the opportunity to experience true joy and turn from the human tendency to get angry when 1 are wronged.
i know God will take care of us. sure, it is our car, but it is only a car. He has never failed me yet and i know Him to be faithful and trustworthy and in this too He is so so good.
you can ask the Lord to bring our jeep back (i am), but i mostly ask you to pray with me that i will be found pleasing to Him in the midst of this and that the thief would find mercy and salvation. amen!
so i thank Jesus for today as much as for our cherry picking day - all are gifts.
still counting gifts to 1000...
654 - 672:
654. supplies in my craft closet to make gifts.
655. the Holy Spirit moving my heart for the poor.
656. a family pass to the aquatic center for the summer.
657. my boys who want to be preachers when they grow up and are already giving their first sermons.
658. praying with other women lift up each others' needs and desires.
659. fresh fruit of the summer.
660. cherry picking.
661. patience He is working into my heart.
662. tender hearts before the Lord.
663. bright blue sunny sky days.
664. the rain watering my garden for me today.
665. new ideas for the garden.
666. sweet sons who love each other as brothers and friends.
667. new piano student.
668. the opportunity to walk the talk.
669. His mercies are new every morning, so great is His faithfulness.
670. teachers who see my boys with the eyes of the Father.
671. our freezer to preserve the summer bounty for the winter up ahead.
672. He works all things together for our good.
i am linked up at a holy experience.
if you have a blog, let me know if you have a list of your grace
gifts so i can visit! if you don't, write something you are thankful
for in the comment section. i love hearing from you!if you haven't liked this facebook page, you can in the upper right of this post. i would love to keep in better touch with you!
charis
