My Desire

      My dream, since I was very young, was to have children.  I knew that there would be a husband in there, but he wasn’t the dream- the children were.  I wanted to give my love to my children, to show them what love was, teach them the important (imo) things in life, and have lots of fun together. My thoughts were always toward a large family, maybe even twelve children.

       A year after we were married, medical testing showed that a divine miracle would be needed for us to conceive.  One year after that my faith for a miracle gave out and my dream shattered.  Though it remained painful, we found our path toward adoption.  This became painful as well as adoption of a baby or young child was near impossible.  Eventually, we did get our names on a list and seven years after marriage, we were told we would be parents.

       I cannot explain the joy we felt, the excitement.  We had about a week to get ready.  We shopped for baby furniture, outlet plugs, clothing, diapers, bottles, food, toys, and even a stocking to hang on the mantle (our daughter actually fit in it…). Each new item brought more joy and anticipation.  Then one day we got the call.  We were parents of a beautiful and healthy baby girl.

       The day we spent with her birthmom in the hospital, we got to hold her in our arms for the first time.  We fell in love with her.  She was perfect in every way.  I could barely believe what a great blessing God had given us.  When we brought her home, she was our delight, our greatest Christmas present.  It was easy to spend hours just gazing at her beautiful face as we held her.  I loved to sing to her, play with her, touch her soft skin and hair, and kiss her chubby cheeks.

She was mine, my precious daughter, forever.

We are God’s*, His precious adopted children, forever!

(God) His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his own family by sending Jesus Christ to die for us.  And he did this because he wanted to!*  Now all praise to God for his wonderful kindness to us and his favor that he has poured out upon us, because we belong to his dearly loved Son.

So overflowing is his kindness towards us that he took away all our sins through the blood of his Son, by whom we are saved; and he has showered down^ upon us the richness of his grace- for how well he understand us and knows what is best for us at all times.  God has told us his secret reason for sending Christ, a plan he decided on in mercy long ago, and this was his purpose^: that when the time is ripe he will gather us all together from wherever we are- in heaven or on earth- to be with him in Christ, forever.

in whom also we have been chosen to an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His own will,

Ep. 1:5-11 TLB (last verse in MKJV)

There was joy and excitement when we were born into God’s family (Lk. 15:10; Hb. 12:2) and we are now God’s treasure (Ml. 3:17) that He loves (Jh. 3:16; Rm. 5:8) dearly!!!

*if we are born again

*to the good pleasure of His will

^caused to abound, overflow (lavished in ESV)

^according to His good pleasure which He purposed

When I Don’t Post Sometimes…

       Ever wonder why I occasionally fail to post?  Although I try to take one day off a week, any other days are probably due to falling asleep while typing.  Have you ever waken up after doing that?  Usually my neck is a little stiff, I end up cold since I don’t have a cover on, or both.  Often I just close my eyes for that second of rest and ‘boom,’ I’m out.

      You’d think by now that I’d get the posts done earlier.  In fact, I could do them the day before which would be best and schedule them to release the next day, but it never seems to work out for more than a couple days.  For some reason, it seems like the only time I can work on them is late at night when my body would rather sleep.  Obviously the night thing doesn’t always work out either…

       Some people struggle to sleep, but I am not one of them.  I have slept through many colourful animations or action packed movies.  I have slept in the car sitting upright, in a restaurant with my head on the table, on a couch in the middle of a store, and balled up on the back seat of my car in more places than I can count.  It doesn’t matter if the sun is shining or it’s as black as a moonless night.  Noise doesn’t seem to hinder me either; only being cold or having WAY too much on my mind.

       That last but rare time I really rely on the Lord for His help.  Often I will relax by thinking of meeting Jesus when He was mortal.  Other times I remember and quote to myself some Scriptures on sleeping.  Here are some of the interesting ones:

I will lie down, both in peace and in sleep. For You alone, Jehovah, make me dwell in safety. Ps. 4:8

It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows; for so He gives His beloved sleep. Ps. 127:2

When you lie down, you shall not be afraid; yea, you shall lie down, and your sleep shall be sweet. Pr. 3:24

I sleep, but my heart is awake. It is the sound of my Beloved that knocks, saying, Open to Me, My sister, My love, My dove, My undefiled; for My head is filled with dew, My locks with the drops of the night. SoS. 5:2

Precious Lord, be with us in our sleep tonight!!!

Silly Commercial

       The first time I ever watched the grown man sitting at the kids table with the little kids in the AT & T commercial I thought it would be funny.  It did end up being cute but the lack of logic messes it up for me.  More is not always better than less.  Bigger is not always better than smaller.

       For instance more ice cream is yummy therefore good, but high in calories and cholesterol therefore bad for health.  More broken tree branches on your yard is worse because it means more physical work to do, but labour can also be good for your health.  A bigger mess left by my kids is most definitely not better than smaller, but a bigger mess of groceries when you come home from shopping is usually good as you have more supplies when needed.  A bigger car would be too hard to drive…  It comes down to perspectives- how we see things.

Here are some perspectives on Jesus:

He’s more loving (Jh. 3:16), caring (Jh. 4:5-30), kind (Mr. 2:13-17), compassionate (Jh. 8:1-11), trustworthy (Ps. 22:4,5), patient (2Pt. 3:9), just (Ac. 7:52), righteous (1Jh. 2:1), holy (Rv. 3:7), honest & sinless (1Pt. 2:22), selfless (1Jh. 3:16), forgiving (Lk. 23:34), etc. than anyone else we know.

He’s less selfish, tyrannical, flawed, aloof, mean, double minded, angry over trivial matters, ritualistic, demanding, etc. than any other god.

He’s bigger than you and I could ever imagine, His kingdom is larger than we can hope for, imagine, and dream of.

He’s smaller… okay, all I’ve got here is He was smaller as a mortal man then when He was with the Father.  He needed to be smaller so He could show us a better way to live and that it was possible to be one with God

       Jesus is everything we need, greater than our dreams and knocks at the door of our hearts waiting for us to let Him in.  He is all we need, our sufficiency.

And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that in everything, always having all self-sufficiency, you may abound to every good work; 2Cr. 9:8

not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God; 2Cr. 3:5