Oh I need you

Today I found myself singing a very old song. Actually it was written in the 1800's. I can't remember the last time I had heard it or even sung it. I know it came to my heart because of the family crisis we are going through together - the intense emotional pain of your beloved third grandson.
David said:
In the day of trouble I will call to you and you will answer me.
The song:
I need you every hour
Most gracious Lord.
No tender voice like yours
Can peace afford

I need you every hour
in joy or in pain
Come quickly and abide
Or life is in vain.

Chorus:
I need you, Oh I need you
Every hour I need you
Oh bless me now my Savior
I come to you.

Whom have I in heaven but you, Lord
And on earth I desire nothing besides you.
My heart and my flesh may fail
But your are the strength of my life and my portion forever.

At a time like this He is more than enough.

I need it all

Who is God?
He is my shield
My strength
My portion
Deliverer
My shelter
Strong tower
My very present help in time of need.
Boy do I need that tonight.
Thanks God that you are El Shaddai- the' enough one', the All Sufficient one.

Husbands

Why did we marry them?
I hated being alone for many reasons:
1. Empty bed- DUH
2. No one to share my crises with.
3. No one to help with decisions.
4. I wanted someone to help with the kids.
5. I wanted an adult to talk to day by day.
6. I wanted a spiritual companion to pray with daily.
You make your own list.
Things I gave up in marrying:
1. Loneliness
2. The right to chose how to spend all of my time.
3. The right to chose how to spend all of my money.
4. The privilege of making grilled cheese for dinner every night.
5. The last word in decisions.
Add your own list.
Husbands- can't live without them but some days can be very trying.
On those days I have some choices to make:
Do I want peace or conflict?
What battles are worth going to the mat for?
Am I a quick forgiver?
Watch out for Alzheimer. It makes you forget that this man is not your enemy but your Beloved. You forget your first list and remember the second one. Maybe you need to make up the personalized list of why your married this handsome hunk and keep it handy for THOSE days.
If all else fails, I have good news.
Jesus is your last and best husband.
He calls himself the Bridegroom.
He will never abandon you.
He will never die.
he will never divorce you.
He says he loves you with an everlasting love.
He betroths you to him forever.
His unfailing love for you will not be shaken.
He nourishes you and cherishes you.
He rejoices over you.
So trust Jesus and love your husband unconditionally as Jesus loves you.
Need examples? Check out I Corinthians 13:4-7

Don't worry but I am.

Tonight I have that creeping feeling of fear, anxiety or worry. Whatever you call it, it is yucky- Like a bad flu. Wish there was a shot for it.
Worry is figuring life without God, kind of a 'without God 'disease. Even that word- dis-ease is very graphic. That is how I feel, ill at ease.
It matters not what triggered it. It does matter what to do about it.
So here is my acrostic:
W- worth the energy?
O - options are available( I am not forced to worry)
R - rest in God
R - raise my eyes to Jesus - look full in his wonderful face .......
Y- Yell " with God all things are possible"

No matter how I work the Rubik cube that has all the options on it, I can't get them all lined up right. Only God can.
I surrender the right to have the future pain free. Instead,
I rest in God's love
I put my trust in His goodness
I set my thoughts on peaceful things about
I cast away my cares
Find my joy in his presence
I will rest,
I will rest
In his love

Love is...

Yes, I am still on the love theme.
Love is:
A warm kitten
A newborn baby
A bouquet of roses
A listening ear
A faithful dog
A romantic evening

Love is God. He is not just loving but love itself. There is not a part of him that is not love.
Some of the words to my favorite love song:
Oh love of God, how rich and pure,
How measureless and strong
It will forever more endure
The saints and angels song.

Could we with ink the ocean fill
And were the skies of parchment made
Were every stalk on earth a quill
And every man a scribe by trade
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry
Nor with the scroll contain the whole
Though stretched from sky to sky.

Unfailing love

I am still stuck on Valentine's Day.
A day about love. What kind of love do you picture? Romantic I guess. Well, that has failed me on more than one occasion, beginning with my high school crush who saw me as a special gal or so I thought, until he went off to college. Then I was just the girl next door. Who needed that when you have college ladies to choose from.
Then there was my first husband who said 'til death do us part' but found a girl at work who seemed just as wonderful, despite our two children and his vow to love me forever. So much for that love.
That put me off on romantic love for quite awhile. The trouble with it is that it is, "I love you because...."
While I pondered this today, I read a love poem by God:
Oh Mary, hope in the Lord, for with Me is unfailing love.
What kind of love?
1. Unconditional - I don't have to do anything to get him to love me more.
2 Eternal- which only God can do since He is eternal, no beginning and no end.
3. Sure and certain for God never lies when he makes a vow.
WOW.
A bonus thought:
God's day where He showed His love was Good Friday!!! That makes Valentines' Day pale by comparison.

Ah, love

Here are some love poems from the Heavenly Lover.
I have loved you with an everlasting love.
I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.
I will allure you and lead you into the desert and speak tenderly to you.
As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so I rejoice over you.
I will betroth you to me forever, in love and faithfulness.
How could I ever give you up? My hearts turned over within me.
I take great delight in you, I will quiet you with my love, I will rejoice over you with singing.
Though the mountians shake and the hills be removed, My love for you will never be shaken.
What sweet words from the heavenly lover.
The best Valentine ever.

Tulips

I love the promise of spring. Several years ago I saw an ad in the Parade magazine for tulip bulbs and bought 60 for 3.00 dollars. And they even had a money back guarantee.What a bargain. I planted them in groups and waited eagerly for them to appear in spring. Ha! Only three came up. The rest were not even available to be returned, they just disappeared in the soil. To be honest, shortly after I purchased them, I saw an article on the Sunset that said do NOT order but buy locally so you can see the size- the bigger the better. Mine were, in reality, peanut size at best.
Well, this fall I again tried the bulb thing, but with good instructions from a friend. I purchased some healthy sized ones at my local nursery and planted them layer upon layer in a nice pottery pot. Tulips, daffodils, crocus, and I am not sure what else.
Surprise, surprise surprise, they are all coming up. First a tiny green shoot or two but now there are about 16 green sprouts longing for sun to warm them. I can hardly wait for them to bloom.
Jon was a naysayer. He said that the first shoots were not bulbs coming up but , well he was vague about what. But he can no longer deny something is happening.
At times, I have shared my faith and the result seems to be like those first tulips that I planted - nothing. I see no sign of even the tiniest shoot of faith in the person. But then, out of the clear blue, a life puts up one green sprout and I get so excited.
It happened just the other day. Someone called that I had shared God's love with over the years, both by my life and in a notes here and there. He wanted to know what time our church service was!!! I could have fallen over, because in this person's life, there seemed to be no interest or 'shoot' at all. Now I am waiting for the blossom of faith to open. I'm praying that it is THIS Spring.
So, I will just keep planting God's love and be fool enough to believe for even the tiniest green sprout to rise someday in each one I meet.

Worship

Yesterday was the largest worship gathering in our country. No, I do not mean all the believers who gathered to rejoice in the love of God and his gift of salvation. I mean the worship of the pigskin. How weird is that? It is just a ball, made by human hands. It can't even move down the field without human hands. It is subject to man, yet worshipped by him. What is that about???
Because there is not breath in it, it can't talk, yet those who carry it hope it will change their lives forever. It is just a silent ball.
Don't get me wrong. I watched the second half of the game and yelled at the amazing interception at the end. It was very exciting. But I had done my worshipping earlier in the day. Worshipping my creator.
God calls to all men and idols, pigskin and otherwise, let all the earth be silent before HIM. He alone is worthy of all honor and praise and adoration and applause.

The other book

The other book I read this week is called "uncharted". What a good title for the story which involves an island in the Marshall Island chain.
Let me backtrack. Did you ever read C S Lewis' book ,The Great Divorce? It was about people who were in hell and the chance they had to go to heaven on a bus tour. It was an allegory but so profound, as are all his writings. The people hated it in heaven. Some never even got off the bus. Those who did said the grass hurt their feet. Others said that the light burned their eyes. They babbled about the things they saw and hated and hurried back to the bus. They never wanted to be with God and hated it now.
This book presents eternity in an entirely new way.
First off there is no 'death', you can't die even if you want to do so. That might seem obvious but what if you wanted to end your dreadful existence and couldn't do so?
Also your greatest sins are shown in living color , even those you only thought and never acted on. First, revealed to you alone but eventually to all who are there.( UHG!).
People talk about being in hell with all their friends. In this story, the characters were there with their oldest and dearest friends only to discover that they were not who they thought they were and they grew to hate them.
And there was incessant thirst that could never be quenched. Possible liquids that seemed like they would satisfy that thirst were, in reality, bitter, full or ants or so yucky they couldn't bear to drink it.
Attempts to leave, unlike Lewis' book, were to no avail.
Just two possible ways to portray the eternity the unbelievers choose for themselves when they reject God's offer of eternal life in heaven with love, light, healing, joy, friendship, family, and God himself.
The choice is obvious to me. God, with me now to face daily trials and then eternity with Him in heaven.
Think about it.

Mercy

I love to read and find it the way I both relax and let my imagination run wild, visiting places and times that I have never been. This week I read two good books. Today I want to tell you about one of them and tomorrow the other.
The first is a very old book, actually written in 830 BC by a prince of Jerusalem. He was not only a prince but a prophet, speaking for God. His name is not on the top ten list of baby names for this generation or any other for that matter- Zephaniah!
He presents truth and grace, wrath and mercy of God.
He uses very strong language to tell his people that God was going to be a witness in the court of heaven. He was going to stand up and testify against them. Though he had loved them with and everlasting love and chosen them out of all the peoples of the earth, they had rejected Him and gone their own way. So now the ‘day of the Lord’ was coming. That is the truth part of the book. The wrath of God- where he would let them suffer the consequences of their choice to abandon and reject him. They had said to God,’ no thanks‘, so he was going to back out of their lives.
But the writer also presents the grace and mercy of God.
He says to those who trust in the name ( character) of the LORD :
The Lord your God is with you, in your midst.
He is a Victorious Warrior, mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you
He will quiet you with his love
He will rejoice over you with singing.
Wow! I want to be in the second group whom God rejoices in.

“You sing over me
While I am unaware
You dance all around
But I never hear a sound
Lord, I amazed by you
Lord I’m amazed by you
Lord, I’m amazed by you,
How you love me.”