Three Year Blog-o-versary!!!

I can't believe three years have come and gone since I first started this blog. I love that it has been 3 years because it speaks to me of the Triune God that I long for and love. I.do.not.know.where.I.would.be.without.Him.
Yesterday, I was coming home from dropping my baby off at her MiMi's and I just had holy goosebumps all over me as I sang about Him being a wonder and Him being "One and the Same" off of CeCe Winan's "Alabaster Box" cd. I will never comprehend Him or give Him the glory that He is due. I Praise Him that He is no less glorious in regards to my weakness. I praise the One who never changes. He is constant, and constantly faithful.
I wish I had more eloquent words. As I type I have a lump welling in my throat. Why? Because He has been so faithful to me.

As only God would see fit, I am all by myself on this blessed Eve of the New Year. Normally, I don't offer that kind of stuff up but I know that if anyone messes with me, they are messing with God, and they are bound to get shot if they set one foot in my house. OK. For those of you who do not like guns, I am sorry however I am very fluent with a gun as I was a wanna-be-scared-of-her-shadow-cop. The Lord has done a major work in my inner man regarding fear. Rod has been in Kansas hunting since last Saturday. When someone tells me their husband is a hunter I think to myself, "not like mine." To say he is an avid hunter would be a bit of an understatement. I spend most winters alone until the first of February. He would differ with me but it is true. It was a major adjustment at first but now I just see it as the Lord using that to draw me to Him. I was talking with a woman at church the other day and I was telling her a story about one day recently when I was blessed by something when I could have had the temptation to feel sorry for myself. She stops me mid-sentence and says (and I quote), "Well, I wouldn't know about that, I don't struggle with feeling sorry for myself." Well, good for her, where was the blue ribbon that I needed to pin on her dress when I needed it!?!? This time of year a lot of feelings of loneliness and etc can creep in due to expectations. I have to literally ask God to take any of those feelings and show me that they are opportunities to draw closer to Him. Our unmet needs, expectations, and longings can be flat out dangerous if not seen in the proper light.
I drove past the mall tonight and wondered why this parking lot was so full and saw the Alcohol store (or whatever you call it). It occurred to me that many people would be bringing the New Year in by being intoxicated. I read last night where a certain actress used to cut her arms so she would feel alive and feel at least the emotion of pain. I am in no way saying adultery is right by any means but I do see how people can have unmet needs and turn to look for love in all of the wrong places. There are all manner of addictions because either people want to feel or they don't want to feel. Rod's coverage is "limited" in Kansas and I have not heard from him today. I could really let some "expectations" go crazy being New Years and instead I choose not to feel sorry for myself but to embrace Christ and His love for me and the reminder that He.IS.THE.ONLY.ONE.THAT.WILL.NOT.LEAVE.ME.OR.FORSAKE.ME.
Have you felt abandoned this year?
Have you felt forsaken? Betrayed?
He is the One and Only that will not forsake you.

You will have to pursue God in the midst of when you fail and when others fail you. No one can live out your relationship with God but you. No one can tend to your heart like Him.

"He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not." Isaiah 53:3

He is familiar with you and me and familiar with our present sufferings.


Now that baby of mine, she is a different story. I can't tell you what that child means to me. How a handicapped heart like mine can love someone as fiercely and madly as I do is only of God. I can't even begin to comprehend how He loves us. She is my constant little shadow and if you were around her for a day you would just about die at how witty and hilarious she is for a four year old. We have our days do not get me wrong. Yet, God would see to it that I am positioned on this couch typing all by myself. Yet another reminder of how He is all I really have. The only Rock that I can truly stand on. While I may be blessed, He is my beginning and end. He will receive me as I one day take my final breath. Unless He just wants to call down a chariot of fire for me and we can skip all of that death stuff. just sayin'.

Please go here with me for a second even though these may be so familiar to you:

1.Deuteronomy 31:6
Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you."

2.Deuteronomy 31:8
The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged."

3.Joshua 1:5
No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you.

4.1 Kings 8:57
May the LORD our God be with us as he was with our fathers; may he never leave us nor forsake us.

5.Hebrews 13:5
Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you."


You have got to love this word forsake in the Hebrew in Joshua 1:5. The LORD will never leave or forsake you.

forsake- Azab-meaning: to forsake, abandon, leave behind, desert.
Used in reference to people...places...and objects which were left
behind...
Used to denote Israel's apostasy in forsaking the Lord and
following after
idols, the Israelites were guilty of breaking their covenant
with God...and
committing spiritual adultery. Azab is used in
signifying that man can
forsake sin...God will never forsake the righteous
person, nor will He abandon
the poor and oppressed and those who seek
Him. God warned the nation of Israel that if they forsook Him, He would
forsake them. On the cross, when Jesus cried out, "My God, my God, why
have You forsaken me?" He was quoting Psalm 22:1, probably in an Aramaic
translation. God did not forsake His son in the sense of ending their
Trinitarian relationship, but Jesus did have to go through the suffering
alone."

Now on this side of the Cross in Christ, He will never leave or forsake
you. You are sealed unto the day of redemption.
The LORD will not drop or abandon you. Take comfort daughter or son Your sins have been forgiven on the cross through His suffering. Be strong and courageous. As you seek Him you will find Him when you seek Him with all of Your heart...He indeed will be found by you. He has engraved you on the palm of His hand.

The reason why I say all of this is because I am shocked that He has stayed with me. Why?
I know more than anything that I know that He is real. He has afflicted me when I needed it and man have I known me some affliction. He has picked me up, wiped my tears, bandaged my skinned up knees from the fall and helped me to stand. He is not into shame. He does not shame us. He has crowned me with love and kindness. He is a God to be feared and a God that is worthy of our lives as an offering.

Shameless unending grace.

I am so undeserving.

So, my resolve this year is to live daily in His presence, trusting Him with my life and trusting in Him to be God.

Oh that we would press on to know Him.

I have been so blessed in this 3 year period of blogging. God has done the exceedingly abundantly through the relationships I have formed as a direct result of blogging. He is amazing.