Beautiful, Beautiful ~

These last two weeks I have just been overwhelmed with gratitude.  I'm sure some of it's just the season we are in, but I think a lot of it is just God moving in my heart in an amazing way.

I have been feeling so grateful that I am brought to tears, overwhelmed, with God's goodness in my life.  I am telling you, every time I even begin to think about it, I am just awed by what he has done in 2014.

If you had asked me a month ago if I would have been feeling this way about the year 2014, I probably would have replied that I am grateful that this year is almost over.  Now, don't get me wrong, it's not that I haven't been grateful, but only in smaller ways.  Not in this big, overwhelming, all-encompassing way that I am feeling now.

In some ways this year has been difficult.  Hard.  Maybe a little discouraging in some areas.  Not just for me, but for many of my friends and family as well.  I have been a little overwhelmed at times.  About halfway through the year I had one of those "grit my teeth" moments where I thought-- If we can just trudge through this year-- it will get better.  Experience has taught me that you can make it through, it just sometimes takes a lot of hard and messy work to so.

And so, that is where I found myself the other day while praying over issues and problems surrounding my life and the lives of those dear to me.  And the more I prayed, the more I felt a sense of sorrow.  And then I just stopped.  I just stopped and sat there and listened.  And this verse came to me:

"I am still confident of this:  I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.  Wait for the Lord;  be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord."  Psalm 27:13-14

I will see.....I will see....  That's what it says.  Not I may see,  or once I'm in heaven I will see it.  Nope.  I WILL SEE.....in the land of the living..... That little verse began to worm its way around my brain and into my heart.  And I began to call out my thanks to God for the good I have seen, and the good I will see.  I started softly, slowly at first.  Unsure.  Hopeful, yet doubtful.  And slowly it built into shouts of praise and thanksgiving to a good and merciful God who works together all things for my good, for the good of my dear ones.

And now, even 2 weeks later, I can't even sit here and type this out without weeping tears of overwhelming gratitude and whispered sentences of praise.  And nothing in my messy life, nor my friends and families lives have changed yet.  it's still messy.  We are still facing hard issues.    And yet, everything has changed.

"Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder."  E.B. White

"Choose to be married to amazement."  Ann Voskamp

So, if you are finding  yourself in a "grit your teeth" moment, get ahold of this verse.  Repeat it.   I WILL SEE....... I WILL SEE........ I WILL SEE the GOODNESS of the LORD in the LAND of the LIVING.   In fact, turn it into a sort of prayer.  I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.  I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.  I am confident of this:  I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

And now, "Wait for the Lord;  be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord."  Don't give up.  Keep going.  Be grateful.  Look for it with expectancy.  Look for the goodness.  Be on the lookout.  Choose to be amazed.  It's there, and it's coming.

I hope you have a wonderful, joy-filled, grateful, memory making, Thanksgiving.