Finding Bethel

Jacob and all the people with him came to Luz (that is, Bethel) in the land of Canaan. There he built an altar and he called the place El Bethel, because it was there that God revealed himself to him when he was fleeing from his brother.  -Genesis 35: 6-7

In my last post, I mentioned that I had been to a women's conference to hear Kelly Minter speak. What I learned in the first part of the conference was that on quiet days I am to be still before the Lord, sit at his feet, and spend time with him. As I have tried to do this, there are always a million distractions. However, my thoughts keep going back to some other lessons that Kelly taught us through the story of Jacob. We learned about Bethel, the place where the Lord revealed himself to Jacob. As I have sought the direction of God on these gloomy winter days, it seems that his still small voice is whispering through the cold and clouds, "Follow me to Bethel." Let me explain...

Kelly began her lesson with recapping the story of Jacob and how he deceived his father Isaac by pretending to be his brother, Esau. By doing this, Isaac gave Jacob the blessing that was intended for Esau. Esau then planned to kill his brother Jacob after the days of mourning for his father were over. In Genesis 28, the Scripture says that Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Haran. When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night. When he fell asleep, he began dreaming. In his dream he saw a staircase reaching down from heaven and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. The Lord was above the staircase and Jacob heard his voice reminding him that he was the God of Abraham and Isaac, and he would bless him with many descendants. Then, in verse 15, God said to Jacob, "I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you." When Jacob woke up the next morning, he thought to himself, "Surely the Lord was in this place, and I was not aware of it." The text goes on to say that he called that place Bethel, though it used to be called Luz.

Jacob goes on from there and ends up marrying Leah and Rachel, Laban's daughters. Jacob's families begin to grow. Several other events take place, and then, in Genesis 31, God tells Jacob it is time to go back to the land of his fathers and that he will be with him. Jacob carefully plans out how he will meet back up with Esau, fearing that Esau is still angry over the past. The night before Jacob meets Esau, we find this encounter in Genesis 32: 22-28:

That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maidservants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, "Let me go, for it is daybreak." But Jacob replied, "I will not let you go unless you bless me." The man asked, "What is your name?" "Jacob," he answered. Then the man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome."

Esau ends up accepting his brother back peacefully. In Genesis 35, God tells Jacob to go to Bethel, settle there, and build an altar there to God. So Jacob tells his household to get rid of their foreign gods, purify themselves, and change their clothes. In Genesis 35: 3 Jacob says, "Then come, let us go up to Bethel, where I will build an altar to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and who has been with me wherever I have gone." So they go up to Bethel and build an altar, and Genesis 35: 7 says that Jacob called the place El Bethel, because it was there that God revealed himself to him while he was fleeing from his brother.

There are so many rich truths that Kelly Minter showed us through Jacob's journey but here are some that spoke to me the most.

1. We are told that Jacob wrestled with a "man" all night before he met back up with his brother, Esau. Symbolically, this was about Jacob wrestling with God himself. At the end of the night, Jacob cries out that he will not let go unless he is blessed. Kelly pointed out that this may sound arrogant to yell at God. I have always thought the same when I've read this story before. However, as Minter taught, it is actually a great and powerful prayer: "I will not let go of you, God, until you give me what you have brought me to this place/circumstance for."  Jacob's name was changed at this time from Jacob "The Deceiver" to Israel "One who has struggled and overcome". What a beautiful picture of salvation. When we cry out to God and hold on to him until we see his promises fulfilled, he not only gives us a new name but makes us a new creation.

2. Kelly Minter pointed out that she was almost disgusted when she realized that after God had brought Jacob and all his families back to his homeland, before he could go up to Bethel to settle, his family had to bury their foreign gods. God had done such awesome things in their lives and kept all his promises and yet they had foreign gods. She felt disgusted, she said, until she heard the voice of God saying to her that we all have some foreign gods to bury before we can get to our own Bethel.. Kelly reminded us that a god with a little "g" or idol is not necessarily an Old Testament statue of wood, bronze, or metal. It is anything in our lives, good or bad, that we allow to master us, motivate us or that we fear or serve. Good things even, if we allow them to become ultimate things, can be a foreign god. To get to the place where God reveals himself to us, we have to bury our foreign gods at the foot of the cross.

3. Once we are rid of our foreign gods, then we are to be purified. While in Jacob's day, there were several things that had to be done to achieve purification, today we are purified once and for all time by accepting Jesus Christ as Savior, being washed in his blood.

4. Jacob's family buried their foreign gods, they were purified, and then they had to change their clothes in order to go to Bethel.. Kelly taught us that when we are purified by the blood of Christ internally, then our outer garments are to change to reflect the work God is completing inwardly. Colossians 3:12 describes what our new clothes are to look like: Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.

It is through meditating on these truths the past few days that I have felt God's voice whispering, "Follow Me to Bethel." To Bethel-the place where God reveals himself. Kelly Minter talked about how for her, her work and ministry in the Amazon jungle is her Bethel. On these cold winter days, I'm searching for my Bethel. I'm searching for the place where God's voice will tell me to put my effort in making his kingdom come. Maybe you are searching for your Bethel too. As we travel, may we not let go of God until he gives us what he is leading us to. Let us not let any good things become ultimate things so that only the Lord is God in our lives. Purified in the blood of Jesus,  let us put on the new garments he has given us to reflect the work he is doing in our hearts. And let us follow him to Bethel, to the place of true worship, where we care about the things God cares about and live the life of power, change, and influence that he wants us to live.

Waiting...

Today I was blessed to spend some time with my sister attending a women's conference at Crosspoint Community Church. The guest speaker was one of my favorite authors, Kelly Minter. It was just one of the those days where I knew that I was in the right place at the right time to hear a specific Word from the Lord. The messages God spoke through her breathed such Life into me that I had to share them. I pray that they may give you hope if you're reading this the same way they have me.

We began reading from John 11: 1-6 where we find these words:

Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped His feet with her hair. So the sisters sent word to Jesus, "Lord the one you love is sick." When he heard this, Jesus said, "This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it." Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days.

Maybe you already know this, but one of the things Kelly pointed out that helped me to gain perspective on this story was to realize that the Mary of "Mary and Martha", the Mary of Bethany, and Mary, Lazarus' sister is all the same person. Taking this into account, we looked back at Luke 10: 38-42 where Mary first met Jesus at the home of her sister, Martha. While Martha was busy with all the preparations that had to be made while having a guest in her home, Mary sat at the Lord's feet and listened to him. Two truths that we learned about that really resonated with me in this story were:

1. Martha gets a hard time for being "busy" while having a guest in her home, and not just any guest but Christ himself. However, it was through Martha's willingness to open her home to a guest that her sister Mary had the opportunity to sit at the feet of Jesus and get to know him. Also, she was doing "necessary" things. She was being hospitable. When she asked Jesus if he cared that her sister had left her to do all the work, Jesus told her only one thing was needed and Mary had chosen what was better. Kelly Minter reminded us that the good is sometimes the enemy of the best. While the things that kept Martha busy were good, spending time with Jesus was best. Oh, what a challenge for me to lay aside the "necessary" things everyday to spend time doing what is best: sitting at Jesus' feet and listening to his direction!

2. This was a calm time for Mary and Martha. There is no major crises going on that we are told about. During this "quiet" day, Mary took the time to sit at the Savior's feet and get to know him.

The reason this second truth spoke to me so much was because right now I am going through some relatively quiet days. I am experiencing a time of peace after 2 1/2 years of a very busy work/school schedule. While for me it is hard going from doing something all the time to having so much more free time, I have felt the last week or so that I am to spend this time sinking my roots down deep into Jesus by spending time with him. Then, when a new job and new opportunities come, I will have deep roots in him to draw from to deal with the challenges they will bring. Learning that this is what Mary did was confirmation to me that God is in fact telling me to use my quiet days wisely and spend them sitting at his feet.

The second encounter Mary had with Jesus that we studied was the one where we started, in John 11. It tells that when Jesus got word that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days. The text says that he loves Mary, Martha, and Lazarus and yet he stays. It seems like such a foundational truth but it is one I can never hear enough. Right now in my life, I am in a time of waiting on the Lord. Perhaps you are too. May we cling to the truth that sometimes the Lord's love means that he tarries.

Later on in the Scripture when Jesus does arrive to the place where Lazarus is, he meets Martha first. Then he asks for Mary. I like what Kelly pointed out at this point in the text because it felt so personal to me today. The people told Mary that the Teacher was there and he was looking for her. Today, the Teacher was at Crosspoint and he was looking for me. I can only hope that my response would always be the same as Mary's: she runs to him and falls at his feet. We learned that in her quiet day, Mary sat at the Lord's feet. Then, in her time of crisis, she fell at his feet demonstrating and deepening her trust in him.

Finally in John 12, after Jesus had raised Lazarus, Mary anointed Jesus' feet with perfume. While there is so much depth in this moment in Scripture, I think Minter summed everything up best by saying that Mary gave everything to Jesus at this time. Here she is again at the feet of Jesus, and she gave him her total devotion, all of her worship.

The central objective of the message today was about how to identify our false gods and eliminate them from our lives. We were taught that to get rid of our idols, we have to pour into our relationship with Jesus, identify our trust issues with him, and ask ourselves what we are missing about the Savior that makes our idols seem so powerful.

As I mentioned before, I am in a time of waiting. I am waiting to take a board exam, waiting to see which direction my career will take, waiting to see what the future has in store. It is a constant struggle for me to give up control and know that God has my best interest at heart. As Kelly Minter said, sometimes it's not worrying that God is going to provide what's best for us, it's worrying how painful the best is going to be that scares us. 

This week in a moment of doubt and struggle I asked my husband, Brad, if he had any words of wisdom for me while I wait. He quoted the verse, "Be still and know that I am God." Today when I won a door prize that was a painted board from the Spotted Zebra in Trussville, I almost burst into tears as it was handed to me. I looked down at the board which had the outline of a dove painted on it and said, "Be still and know that I am God." Oh, how he loves us! If you are reading this, I just wanted you to be reminded how personal our God is and how much he cares for you. Perhaps through these words you have found that the Teacher is here and he is looking for you. I don't know what his personal message to you is, but I know He is faithful and true. He is with you and for you and will never let you go.

Called by Name

Over the past few weeks, I have had the privilege of studying the book of Ruth with a very cool, eclectic group of girls. Last week as we studied, we discovered the significance of Boaz calling Ruth by name as he declared that he was going to marry her, Ruth-the Moabite. We discussed how this is similar to Jesus calling us by name as he declares that we are his own. As we studied, I began to think about what it means for Jesus to call us by name. When he says our names, what is it that he is communicating to us? What does he say when he has our attention? My thoughts led me to a story that I love in the book of Exodus. It goes something like this:

Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian; and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush; and he looked, and lo, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. And Moses said, “I will turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.” When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush. “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here am I.” Then he said, “Do not come near; put off your shoes from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” And Moses hid his face for he was afraid to look at God.

~Exodus 3:1-6

I have always loved this story on a surface level because it reminds me that what I think is ordinary is actually extraordinary and that God’s presence is all around us, if only we take the time to turn aside and see. Recently though, while studying the context around the story, I’ve grown to love the passage even more as the Lord has revealed many more spiritual truths through it.

I am particularly inspired by Frederick Buechner’s insight on the story. Buechner seems to believe that God is calling each believer, in the same way that he called Moses. He points out that just before God called Moses, Moses had killed an Egyptian for beating a Hebrew slave. Now, although we more than likely have never taken someone’s life, surely we have withheld life from someone. Sometimes we know that thing we should do, that phone call we should make, the encouraging word we should speak, the prayer we should pray, and for whatever reason we withhold what little we may have in us to give.

Nevertheless, God desires to use us anyway to accomplish his purposes, just as he did Moses. Ever so often, we are just lucky enough to be given the grace to turn aside and see what God is doing in this world. We’re given the opportunity to listen to his voice, calling us out, by name, to the selves he would have us become, to lives he would have us live. Sometimes the Word comes in a song we hear, or a book we read, or a conversation we have-and then it seems as if the world is afire. Things are alive. There is more going on than what we can physically see. This ordinary life we’re living is extraordinary and shot through with the handwriting of a holy God. We realize that the ground we are standing on is holy because a holy voice is speaking to us on it.

In the moments when we are given the grace to hear that majestic voice calling our names, what is it that he is saying to us? What he said to Moses was,

“I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry…I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them…”

~Exodus 3:7

So the Lord says he will come down to deliver suffering people. There’s just one catch, the Lord doesn’t have a physical body-so he’s going to come through Moses.

And the Lord goes on from there to tell Moses that he [Moses] will go to Pharaoh and tell him that he is there to deliver the people from the oppression they’re facing. God will use Moses to be his hands and feet in the world.

Today, I think perhaps when the Lord calls our names he is calling us too, to be deliverers of those who are under the weight of some type of oppression. Rob Bell in his book Jesus Wants to Save Christians gives some statistics about our world today:

•  there are 27 million slaves
• 840 million go to bed hungry
• 1 million commit suicide every year
• 4,500 people in Africa will die of AIDS today.

I am grateful to my friend, Ben, for reminding me that these numbers are important for urgency, but they can be overwhelming. There is so much work to be done, and one individual can only do so much. But when we turn aside and listen, God can and does call us to focus our energy, to help those he places right in front of us, to learn to love each individual person, to know them by name.

I’m grateful to God for providing opportunities for my friends and I lately to be his hands and feet. From making phone calls to invite people to church, to leading retreats, to inviting the neighborhood to Bible study, to taking the time to pray aloud with patients in their distress, we are finding that when Jesus said he came to give us an abundant life, he meant it. When we are obedient to let him work through us to deliver others, to love others, to help those in need, we experience a joyous freedom in him, a desire to love and serve him more.

When God called Moses, at first Moses wasn’t sure if God had picked the right person. His answer was somewhat like, “Excuse me, God, you don’t really mean you want ME to do THAT?” We’ve all had that awkward moment when someone waves our direction and we wonder if they’re waving at us or the person in front, beside, or behind us. I think God is waving at us. Yes, he means you. He means me. He is speaking to us. He’s calling our names. We’re standing on holy ground. The life he offers and the work he is doing in the world is abundant and he’s inviting us to join him. He’s telling us to...

Heal.

Deliver.

Love.

Feed.

Invite.

Lead.

Pray.

So the questions are:

Will we listen?

Will we go?

Earnest Prayer

And he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed, saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” And being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.

~Luke 22: 41-44

If there are any words that I think are most powerful, most surrendering to pray it has to be those of Jesus just before his crucifixion: “not my will, but Yours be done.” Knowing what was ahead of him, his body ached until he sweat drops of blood. Yet, even in great desperation and anxiety, he wanted more than his own desire for the Father’s will do be done. The more he hurt, the more uncertain he felt, the more earnest he prayed. Oh to be a child of God who responded to difficulty and challenge the way Jesus did!

All too often though, if I’m honest, when I hit a rough spot or things don’t go as planned, or I get that call or that news, my prayer stops and disconnection from my Father ensues. Instead of withdrawing to the Lord, I run from him, afraid of what his will may be, what it may require of me.

As I recognize this pattern in my spiritual walk, my deepest hope is that God would not only give me the grace to repent of being too fearful to pray sincerely for his will, but also that he would help me to engage in whatever it is he places before me, desiring more than anything else to see his will revealed and fulfilled.

As I pursue these things in my spiritual journey, thankfully, the Lord is showing me some things about the attitude with which to approach challenges, what to pray for in hard seasons, and some things about the nature of his grace.

What I’m learning about the mind set with which to approach difficulty is this: instead of running from challenge, run into Jesus’ open arms. He’s not asking me to go alone, just to go and trust that he’ll be there. Don’t try to stand tall on my own, but lean into him and let him carry me through. Shauna Niequist expresses the same concept like this:  “if you try to stand and face the wave, it will smash you to bits, but if you trust the water and let it carry you, there’s nothing sweeter.”

What the Lord is showing me in regard to prayer in hard seasons is this: to pray. I know it sounds simplistic, but all too often, in difficult times, I do not pray as much as I try to figure out the “why” of the difficulty. What I’m seeing is that my prayer doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be. God gives us the gift of prayer, not because it changes him but because it changes us. It lifts our eyes, widens our perspective, and comforts our souls. I think that one of the sweetest, most authentic sacrifices we can offer before God in prayer is a sincere heart. As the prophet Joel says, “rend your heart.” I believe this means to come before the Lord in the true state of your heart. I think when we do that we are able to see as Shauna Niequist states, “more awareness of God’s presence and action and ability, and less stranglehold on fear and anxiety.”

As I rend my heart before the Lord, this is what I am finding about his grace: it has the power to reveal his desires to my heart and to make them my own. A familiar verse from the Psalms says, “delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” I am discovering that true joy in the Lord transforms my desires to be the same as the Lord’s and that is when I receive the desires of my heart-when they are one with the Lord’s. I think that’s one of the ways his grace is most clearly demonstrated. In making us a new creation, he gives us his very own desires. He does not just ask us to pray for his will, he empowers us to will what he wills. As Shauna Niequist says, “Grace is when the silence is so complete that you can hear your own heartbeat, and right within your ribs, God’s beating heart, too.”

I am so thankful for a Savior who can identify with our human weakness and yet also with God’s strength. I’m grateful that he showed us what earnest prayer looks like in the most difficult situations. Most of all, I’m thankful that Jesus leaned into the challenge before him, tearing the veil that separated us from the Father so that we might be reconciled to him, given the grace to desire his will.

Hungry

When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?" He said to him, "Yes Lord; you know that I love you." He said to him, "Feed my lambs."
~John 21: 15

The encounter Jesus had with the disciples in the last chapter of John is one that has always been intriguing and hopeful to me. The chapter begins with this scene: the disciples are out in their boat fishing and Jesus is standing on the shore yet the disciples do not realize that it is Jesus. Jesus asks them if they've caught anything and they tell him no. He tells them to cast their net on the right side of the boat and then they will find some fish. When they did as he told them, they caught so many fish they were not able to haul all of them in. Immediately, the disciples knew that it was Jesus they were talking to.When they reached the land, there was a charcoal fire with fish and bread layed out on it. Jesus told them to bring the fish that they had caught and to come and have breakfast.

There are so many different things that I love about this story, but the thing that stands out to me foremost is the concept of being fed and feeding. I can hardly imagine what it would have been like to be one of the disciples and to have been fishing that morning, having no luck, and then, all of sudden, to have the resurrected King of the world standing on the shore telling me where to throw the net! I find it interesting that after Jesus has come back from the dead, the first thing He asks the disciples to do when they recognize that it is him is to come and have breakfast. He shares a meal with them, and better yet, the story seems to imply that he cooks for them. He's the servant. His humility is astounding.

And the story just gets better and better! After breakfast, Jesus asks Peter three different times if he loves him, and each time of course Peter replies that he does. Each time that Peter affirms his love for the Lord, Jesus responds with statements like "feed my lambs", "tend my sheep", "feed my sheep". Essentially, Jesus first fed Peter. He spent time with him; he developed a relationship with him. Then, he got to the heart of the matter.

Do you love me?
Yes.
Then do what I have done for you.

I think that Jesus does the same thing for us today. If only we are willing to draw near, to cut through layers of distraction and apathy in our lives and spend time with the Lord. Let him feed us with his Holy Spirit. Get to know him for he indeed already knows us. Develop a relationship with him. Then, out of gratitude that the King wants to feed us, to know us personally, feed others with what we have been given.

We can't repay Jesus for what he has done for us, but we can show that we love him by getting to know people and developing relationships with them. We can get to know their personalities, their strengths, their weaknesses, and then we can get to the heart of the matter-Who is the ultimate Feeder? Who gives the bread and the fish to begin with? I think loving people simply, without an agenda, is a good way to spread the Gospel. I think it's what Jesus did and what he would have us do.

I'm finding that the more I am obedient to love people authentically, the more Jesus open doors for me to tell them Who creates this love and compassion inside of me. I'm finding too that as I try to love, heal, and feed my efforts heal me. I love the way Rob Bell puts it. He says, "Our standing in solidarity with the single parent, the unemployed, the refugee, our joining the God of the oppressed to work for justice in the world doesn't just make a difference for those who are suffering. It rescues us."

My prayer is that the more Jesus feeds me, the hungrier I would become for more of his food and more of his love and compassion for his sheep.

Change

"This is what I've come to believe about change: it's good, in the way that childbirth is good, and heartbreak is good, and failure is good. By that I mean it's incredible painful, exponentially more so if you fight it, and also that it has the potential to open you up, to open life up, to deliver you right into the palm of God's hand, which is where you wanted to be all along, except that you were too busy pushing and pulling your life into exactly what you thought it should be."

It is with these words that Shauna Niequist, my favorite author currently, begins her book "Bittersweet." It is through these same words and so many others by Niequist that God continues to reveal to me truth about his character and truth about life in general. I'm not usually the type to want to share exactly what's on my mind for I'm always fearful that I'll say too much and unveil something of myself that I'd rather keep hidden. Lately, however, the Lord has shown me that he reveals things about himself to me through my spiritual language (stories and literature) so that I can then share them with others. I've learned that "revelation is grace" and grace is to be extended to everyone whose path I cross. So I'm starting this blog in an attempt to be obedient to share what God teaches me. Here's my best shot at telling you about life with Jesus as it reveals itself from my field of vision.

As Niequist points out in the opening quote, change is both good and bad, pleasant and painful, bitter and sweet. This past year has been one of immense change for me personally. I graduated from nursing school in 2009 and started working as a registered nurse 3 weeks after I graduated. Before graduating, I had every intention of moving back to Rome, GA, where I grew up. Jesus, however, had different intentions for me, and as he always seems to do, he won and his plan prevailed (imagine that!). I ended up getting a job in Birmingham, AL, at a hospital where I had been fortunate enough to do an internship in nursing school and also a preceptorship right before I graduated. Ironically, I did both the internship and preceptorship on the exact same floor I now work on.

I cannot say enough good things about the people I work with. They are the very best. The environment in which I work is very supportive and encouraging, and had it not been for that, I'm not sure I would have made it through my first year as a nurse. However, the job itself at times is extremely stressful. Several times, I've wanted to throw in the towel and quit, convinced that I've made a huge mistake in becoming a nurse, absolutely certain that this is not the field through which I can best serve others. I've spent a lot of time this year looking for a different life than the one God has placed me in. I've argued with God until I'm blue in the face about why I am not capable of doing the tasks he's placed before me and why it was a big mistake for me to go into nursing and to stay in Birmingham. After all, all my friends moved away after graduation, I feel alone in a big city, and my job is just too stressful. As Niequist phrases it, I have been very busy pushing and pulling my life, trying to make it into what I think it should be, rather than what it is.

These last few weeks, however, I've started a new class and also two new Bible studies. Through them, God is teaching me some truth that I previously overlooked because I was too busy trying to do his job. I feel closer to God than I have in a long time and for that I am so thankful. After a long period of not feeling his presence at all, it seems that I am finding him everywhere. And as I find him, it seems that the still small voice through which he whispers to me is saying that surrender is sweet and in obedience there is freedom.

I am thankful for reaching the bottom, because it is usually only when I am there that I truly cry out for the presence of the Lord in my life. I am grateful for the changes and challenges that I have had to face this year for they are indeed delivering me right into the palm of God's hand which is where I truly do want to be. I am learning that everything is not ok, but this tiny moment with God is. I am thankful that as I am beginning to embrace life as it is right now rather than striving to make it what I would like it to be, I am seeing the faithfulness and grace of God in a brand new way.

I am excited about discovering God more and more and sharing what I find with others. In the words of Shauna Niequist "...this is the work I'm doing now, and the work I invite you into: when life is sweet, say thank you and celebrate. And when life is bitter, say thank you and grow."