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Thursday, November 24, 2011

My reflections on thanksgiving...

There are two articles/blogs that I came across this week. They set words to this year for me. Words that I am often grasping for and mainly pouring forth in broken sentences of emotion. Thankfully, these ladies are much more eloquent than I in capturing eternal spiritual treasures. These came at such an appropriate time.

The Real First Thanksgiving by Ann Voskamp

God Do Something! by Anabel Gillham

I am learning how to live simply. To live thankfully. To live fully. To live full of Him.

And the life that counts blessings discovers its yielding more than it seems.Why don’t I keep an eye on the number of His graces? Why don’t I want to know that even though it doesn’t seem like there’s been enough rain, He reigns and He is enough and the bounty is greater than it appears? That the thin places might be the places closest to God and the skinny places might be fuller than they seem and who isn’t full with Christ? (Ann Voskamp)

More and more, through every new and deepening trial, I see His hand at work in my life. Set to strike in every place that is not bowed low before Him. Set to push. Set to inflict a pressure. All this only to then set His hand to heal, to bind up, and to hold. Everything in me wants to be done with this. To be through with the "winter" season. But He doesn't withdraw the harshness of this season. It remains. And in it, He wants to make a child of me. Ridiculous? Yes. Everything in His kingdom kind of seems absurd. He wants me to receive the harsness and not just the "sweet" stuff. Yet, I fail to do so....everyday. My patience wears thin into nothingness. But His doesn't. In the seemingly vast nothingness field of my life, I just want to cry and cry. I think that I probably cannot easily recognize the obvious blessings around me because I'm just so intent on crying all the time. The tears blurring my vision. And He counts the tears, reminding me that tears are good for the soil of my heart, and those prayers spoken for those hurting souls in need.
Concerning the passage John 13:15, Maria Von Trapp once wrote, "In His great understanding of human nature He uses the word "become"; unless you become as little children....He knows the way of the world is this: A little one is hardly out of the diapers when he is told approvingly: "But now you are a big boy." When he goes to kindergarten: "Now you are not a baby any more." When he is in the first grade: "Well, you are not in kindergarten any more; you are a big boy now." This goes on until in high school he doesn't have to be told that he is a big boy now. He knows it himself. Then one day sooner or later he will be banged on the head by those words of our Lord, and all the growing up and growing up will not seem like an achievement any longer, but like something which has to be undone. That is when the "becoming" starts. After we have grown up in the eyes of the world, we have to "grown down" in the eyes of the God. We have to. There is no way out as long as we want to go to heaven. Heaven is full of children; Our Lord Himself said so."

Today, I am thankful that He is undoing everything and growing me down.
Today, I'm thankful that I walk with a fully-sufficient Lord who brings life from total death.
Today, He is enough and I love the Lord, oh my Strength.

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