last week was not a really great one for me. by that i mean that i did not react to situations in the way that i wish i would have. i feel like i failed a test...and now i'll probably have to re-take it. heheh


i am routinely amazed at God's timing...His perfect timing...and yet-i still struggle to truly trust Him. why?? He always, always comes through..not in amy-time but in God-time, and it is always good. and i always end up feeling foolish for worrying instead of just being faithful and waiting on Him. if i've said it once, i've said it six hundred million times-patience is not my strongest attribute. siiigh. i shared with a friend this week that i've always been afraid to ask God to grant me patience because when i was very young, my (hopefully well-meaning) Granny told me to never ask God for patience, because then He would heap trial after trial upon me until i was patient enough to endure anything. :/ soo..i've finally started asking for patience. haha. it certainly can't hurt. 


speaking of trials being heaped up on you...i've got a few recurring difficulties which cause me particular weakness of spirit. God really knows what He is doing. when He wants to test a person's faith, He goes straight for the gut. He so totally knows what our biggest fears and snares are. of course He would use those things to bring us down to a place where we feel we can no longer fight or do anything for ourselves. He's a smart dude. why waste trials on issues that are easy to be faithful in? 


so i had some temper tantrums and behaved like a spoiled little turd for a few days. all the while feeling like a failure as a believer and a human, and also feeling like i just wasn't getting something right..i MUST be doing something wrong to constantly have to go through these struggles...right? 


thankfully, the Lord has placed some really awesome, encouraging, tough-loving folks in my life who told me what i needed to hear, rather than only what i wanted to hear. God's truth is not always easy to take, but how awesome is it that He loves us enough to give it to us anyway? 


now skip to today, when my pastor spoke about....trusting God and finding joy EVEN THROUGH TRIALS AND STRUGGLES. hahaa. of course he did.  the cool part was that, instead of feeling chastised through the whole service, i felt lovingly reassured and redirected. 


trials are meant to test our faith. God doesn't allow them unless there is something we need to learn from them. He won't abandon us..He wants to bring us low-so low we can do no more ourselves and we (finally!) cry out to Him because we realize that we really are nothing without Him. some of us are blessed to realize this fact sooner than others. ;) and some of us are stubborn, or feeling unworthy of His rescue. trials build our faith by bringing us closer to the Lord, pointing us toward Him & His blessings, humbling us, enabling us to encourage others. what a freeing thought to realize that we don't have to do anything except to let Him love us. how amazing is that? how blessed are we to serve a God whose greatest desire is to love us, and be loved by us??? nothing else matters when you realize this. 


i am thankful that the Creator of the Universe and Most Holy King loves me enough to test my faith and refine me by trial in order to mold me into a remarkable masterpiece, fit to be the bride of the Prince of Peace, His Son. wow. i am the luckiest girl in the world. ♥ 

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the death, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have to suffer grief through all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith-of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire-may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls."
1 Peter 1:3-9


this is what makes me smile:
my oldest favorite song.