Gateways to Joy

I wake up with it all on my mind: the interruptions.   For years now it seems, I've had one interruption after another with the end results being the same: nothing.  Appearing only to be a waste of time. "What have they been good for?" I lie in bed scanning the mind for answers.  All that has really come out of it is what I've already known.  I have layers of sin-sickness and my instability only peels the layers away exposing the truth.   Smokescreens.   The crux of it all boils down to a lack of trust...I'm sensing.  But why do I lack trust?  Do I feel I know better than the all-knowing God how to run my life?   Doesn't my actions speak louder than what I say, so the answer to that question would be yes.  His actions spoke loud too, and revealed His heart toward me: us.  The Bible tells us that God so loved the World that He gave His Son ...   God proved that He loved me by '...

M y heart swells with expression of joy and gratitude when I think about the gifts that He has given, and the gifts that He continues to give. The ability, alone, to share in the gift expression with others is enough to overflow the heart with gratitude.   I feel like shouting: thank you!  Thank you!  Thank you!   My heart is full!   "The Lord is gracious and compassionate...good to all...faithful to all His promises...loving toward all He has made...righteous in all His ways...near to all who calls on Him...watches over all who love Him...my mouth will speak in praise of the Lord, said the Psalmist. My gratitude list #'s 100-104 ~ The simple joys of home life ~ The beauty that each day brings.  The lessons taught.  Lessons learned by His hand. ~ The refreshment that sleeps gives ~New mercies every morning. These gifts are from the hand of Him who redeems your life, who crowns you with loving kindness and compassion, who satisfi...

I woke to feelings I'd not had in a while, an overwhelming saddness flooded me! "Oh, boy, what's going on here I thought." My body didn't want to move.  It longed for the security of my blanket: aloneness.  I could hear them, the kids and my husband in the kitchen scrambling around. "Oh gosh—there's so much to do.  Where do I began?" Finally, I rise.  Go to the bathroom, run bath water, brush teeth, wash face, face them— my family.  Then I remember her and her teaching us:   "Do the next thing." "But I don't want to do the next thing."  I want to stay here and wallow, wallow in self-pity or whatever it was I'm feeling. He beckons me to come, bend the knee—but I don't.  I ignore Him.  "Do the next thing," I hear.  I do the next thing and the next thing after that and so on and so forth. "From an old English parsonage, down by the sea There came in the twilight a message to me, Its...

W hen some out-of-the ordinary supply is needed in order for us to accomplish the job God has given us, we can be confident He will provide. "Shoes of Iron " were asked of Moses' blessing for Asher, an impossibly long-lasting provision from God.  The old spiritual says, 'I got shoes, you got shoes, all God's children got shoes ..." But not all God's children have iron ones.   Only those who need them. Our heavenly Father knows exactly what we will require to fulfill His purposes for us .  It is wrong—it is in fact, a sin for us to worry about where the shoes will come from.  "Trust me!"   God says to us.  "I'll give you iron ones if only iron ones can do this job." I worried this morning about the seemingly impossibility of doing everything that needs to be done today, tomorrow and for next week since I'm now working outside the home for the next three months (and still homeschooling). Then I remembered this a...