Psalm 100
Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth!
Serve the Lord with gladness!
Come into His Presence
with singing!
Know that the Lord, He is God!
It is He who made us, and not we ourselves,
we are His People,
and
the sheep of His Pasture.
4 Enter His Gates with Thanksgiving,
and
His Courts
with praise!
Give thanks to Him; bless His Name!
For the Lord is Good
His steadfast Love endures forever,
and
His faithfulness
to
all
generations.
Lately, with the food poisoning from the tankless water heater and then the rebound, I have been waking up at 5 A.M. and not in pleasant comfort.
I'm going to complain and then add in the good news. That's a non-spoiler alert.
Too warm, too cold, aching this and that. And I wake up and immediately tell the Lord, the One Who loves me, my complaints. And I am not comforted. When the Holy Spirit is truly Comfort and Comforted.
And I began running over my thoughts on being sleepless when the rest of our household look like sleeping angels. My marvelous and celebrated Pediatrician was always wise and wonderful from my childhood to motherhood (twice). Our Pediatrician told me something he said is good advice for all ages. Especially for preemie babies. Ignore the clock, keep your eyes shut and relax, and let your body remember and learn to sleep again.
And this excellent advice can surely make you more restless and resentful as you work diligently and more difficultly to relax.
Eventually, I grow bored, change locations and read. Until I am wide awake as the household awakens cheerfully and happily to find the grumpy, disheveled one is going to nap finally. And that's a sheer bummer to them. And to me, because this isn't a happy time for falling asleep later.
Impromtu
Then you can have an idea for something that could happen, which might be unpleasant. And sit and think of impromptu remarks like Churchill. And then you can find yourself having an entirely choreographed conversation and more than likely never occurs. Until, luckily, you can trot that out just as you needed. And when you are really fortunate, your son asks you how you ever thought of that, that was PERFECT. Then you hate to say you rehearsed it in the middle of the night with anxiety. Not very élan, that. But then you realize, connecting those dots: Probably Jesus was with you, in your discomfort, and your thoughts did finally go down the right path.
Cease, Halt and Desist
I know I heard in church when I was in 5th grade, you can have a conversation with Jesus and tell Him you are tired of the same repeated bad dream, and it will cease. This is working after years of wishing. I no longer visit our newlywed cottage, where it is at the full on, needs work completion era. I explained to the Lord before sleep, Father, tonight I am not visiting the cottage, I am not having an argument with my mother and I'm not changing actual history for worse than it was. And these repeated and unpleasant dreams did stop.
Quilting in the new applications
Then you have more interesting dreams, which are interesting to look at the layers and decide what this means. And can be an interesting internal conversation with Jesus. I have found I remember childhood dreams and add on, sometimes like the example of quilting. And I have to laugh to realize I have dream memories. Then I go and find Edward and tell him how the dream of 6th grade has been reappearing and how I changed it and remembered this. Edward and I both find this amusing. When you know Jesus, Oh, the places you go. And then you can also say, I'm finished with that repeated part.
And one complaining morning I was unloading on Jesus, I could finally hear Karen, the praying loved one of Jesus. I'm not Karen, but 'maybe' when I wake up like this, I certainly can be. So. I thought of all the Bible Studies and conversations for 50 years. And realized the death of complaining is...GRATITUDE. And I began to complain the next sleepy morning, when I was awake enough to stop and have gratitude.
Complaining and feeling vexed doesn't just cease, this allows room to see more profound and immediate peace. Gratitude is like Scripture. It isn't the immediate Ocean and the Horizon! Revealing the Overwhelming display of God's Abilities, it is the sand under your feet. The breeze just when you need a breeze. It is sitting down when no one is going to come up to you as you think of what surrounds you. It is the joy you have in your immediate life. Bacon. Coffee. A kind remark. A hopeful thought. It is the comfort of your favorite shirt. The Blessings you acknowledge in your life. We have to be grateful for the small comforts to see the Forest or the Ocean in front of us.
The Plan of God's unfolding. Being invited to participate. What you hope for. The prayers that are Answered.
Or you could refuse to do this and feel that pain increase.
A former friend came to me once and said the godfather of her children had committed suicide at age 83. He had been an excellent, very honorable man. He had loved his wife for 6 decades. They could not have children and adopted a child who had never enjoyed them or anyone. And eventually the child asked them not to contact her, no one enjoyed each other. The elderly man felt this had hastened his wife's death, who had always loved the adopted daughter. And he felt he would die until he was introduced to a woman his age, and her son, who worked with one of the mighty in the area and had incredible parties. But the more he attended with his girlfriend and her son, the more he felt he was there to be directed and used as a calling card. And as time went on, only directed and manipulated. He felt used. And he set it up to look like dying at age 83, but it was not.
So my friend wanted to know if she should tell her children because she was thinking she would not. I said I think you should because your resolve would unwind, and you will tell them you hid the truth for 5 or 10 years. And in the next month, she returned to our conversation, having decided she would tell them both of his death and the method. But she asked what hope she could give her own adult children?
I said, There is always hope.
You said he lived in a neighborhood that increasingly had retired people. Yes. There are always new people and new situations in life. Proverbs says, Better a living dog than a dead lion. He could have reached for hope to end the toxic and find the better pasture.
Jesus tells us, He is the Gate, and as we chose Jesus Christ, He offers us His Pasture, where we are welcome and will dwell there.
We all have this hope. It is given by God. Endowed by our Creator.
She told her adult children and spoke of the hope he could have found. She said in the phone calls that followed across the continent of the entire USA, she received calls saying they could picture him finding better people to know. Our opportunities are from The Lord.
We always read about the help and strength from the Lord. In eternal reality, the Plan and the Battle and the Glory and Salvation belong to God Himself. His Glory is Great. His Goodness is Profound.
The Battle is God's
Nahum 1:7-9
7 The Lord is good,
a stronghold in the day of trouble
He knows those who take refuge in Him.
8 But with an overflowing flood
He will make a complete end of the adversaries,
and
will pursue His enemies into darkness.
9 What do you plot against the Lord?
He will make a complete end;
trouble
will not
rise up a second time.
We all will wake up in the dark. And we will find God a refuge and a high tower. Our peace. Our gratitude. Our praise.
Or we can have the choice to be in an overwhelming flood of needs and needy with complaints. And let this realization chase us into further darkness.
Or we can allow God to make Peace and have trouble swept in the flood - away.
Abba, Father,
We ask Your blessing upon ourselves, the ones we Love,
the people
You have given us.
These Nations. Peace for all.
Abba, Father,
Psalm 139:17
"How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them"
Matthew 6:8
Your Father knows what you need
before
you ask Him.
John 15:3
Abide in
God's Love
I consider myself fortunate
to stand before you today
Dwell in me,
Dwell in us,
Dwell in those we Love,
Help us to seek You first.
And we will finish well,
in
Jesus Christ.
Father,
Help us
to speak sincerely,
mercifully
Lovingly
Help us seek and find
and bring,
to become,
more Heaven
to this earth.
To be rid
of
Evil
hiding
lying
harm.
To end what is Unrighteous.
Harmful
Plotting
Absorbed by self in all manners
Malicious.
Lord Jesus Christ soon.
Invited to meet Jesus.
The Glory
of
the Paths of
Righteousness
Gift of God
Thank You
for
our first grandbaby
Arriving this summer,
All Your Love
Blessings upon
this little one.
You have
Answered our
Prayers!
And in Jesus - This Hope.
Faith and Love - we will rise up Believing Jesus.
Thank You, Father.
Amen!
♔ Lord Jesus Saves †
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