"I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to m
e and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord." -Psalm 40:1-3
I am so blessed to have been able to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Although it is hard to see it at the time, there is always hope. There is always hope that God is working, He is using the difficult circumstances to bring us closer to him. I just recently finished reading The Shack by William P. Young, and if you haven't read it yet, I HIGHLY recommend it! It was nothing like what I expected it to be like, and about halfway through the book, I was unsure of if I wanted to keep reading. But I finished, and it was fabulous of course. I learned that God does not cause the difficult circumstances in our lives, but He use them for our good. I think this is a good thing to be able to understand if you are skeptical about Christianity. I think that the argument a lot of skeptics have is "why would a God that is sup
posed to be so good let all these bad things happen to His children?" Well, the book talks about how those bad things happen because we are a fallen people. When Adam and Eve ate of the Tree, evil entered the world. We now have death, and lying, and sickness, and sin. But those things aren't OF God. But if we cling to Him, He helps us through.
One of the most beautiful things that I learned was that THIS is not the real world. I say things all the time like "ugh, I'm not ready for the real world" (BTW: one more semester of grad school! exciting? yes. scary? double yes.). But the reality is, THIS isn't the real world, Heaven is the real world. THAT is the place we were created for. The place where we get to have perfect communion with God, 24/7. The Shack paints a beautiful picture of what Heaven is going to be like. Is it true? I couldn't say, but it did get me pretty excited!
So anyway, I apologize for the long break from the blog. I hope to be back in action now. I'm home right now in Chattanooga, spending some QT with John & Jan. And we leave Tuesday for Bequia (a Grenadine island in the Caribbean off of St. Vincent) and hopefully I'll have some sort of internet access with which I can keep yall updated. Bon Voyage!
