Saturday

I've probably come up with a hundred reasons why I can't.  Even sitting here,I can feel the fear rising up in my stomach.  Truth is, I can...and I have been.  I ran this morning, thinking back over the last days and weeks, thinking about how in even the hardest of situations, I see God's favor on me, on my life.  Even when things don't go remotely like I had planned, I have learned (the hard way..I'm stubborn like that) to eventually just give it up.  I have learned that when I ask for His guidance, He gives it.  When I say...I trust You...He moves.  I don't want to run from hard, but I want to make sure He is in it.  I don't want to call myself doing His will, when perhaps it is just me, holding on to my own willfulness.  Because sometimes, hard is choosing to be still, to step back.

He talked of grace yesterday.  It made me irritable.  I was face to face with it all day until finally it exploded into something that completely broke me.  I was forced to give it, receive it, and do it all in front of my children which, oh my....and it brought a dying to myself, my flesh, my rights, my needs, my wants, my absolute being.  The breaking is required for Him to humble us.  And humility is of great price.

Matthew 7:11

The Voice (VOICE)

11 So if you, who are sinful, know how to give your children good gifts, how much more so does your Father in heaven, who is perfect, know how to give great gifts to His children!

And I have learned, not so easily at times, to settle.  To quiet.  To do what He asks.  And it is through tears mostly, but I was reminded yesterday that this is not an unfamiliar path.  The tears, the breaking, the struggle, the pain all give way to something new.  And something I read last night made me breathe a deep sigh and let it all go...You have to be scared to be brave....Thankful.