A child of God educating other children.

The summer of 2005 Tim and I were not dating, we were in the midst of an 8 month break in our relationship. And that same summer one of my closest friends I ever had died in a car accident. This has been the hardest time in my life to date. Tim was the one I wanted to go to and try to to grieve the loss of my friend, but couldn't. God did amazing things with me that summer though. Kim Mister, a friend of mine through Tim gave me the devotional "A Woman's Walk with God: Growing in the Fruit of the Spirit" by Elizabeth George (the one I've mentioned in previous posts). The day I found out about my friend Aaron's death was in the middle of God teaching me real joy. I learned it! In the midst of so much pain and sadness I had a tremendous amount of joy. God continued to teach me about all his wonderful fruit and I was happy with how I was growing in God.

I feel like since then I have taken God for granted. Tim and I got back together, I could see God's hand in that. Tim and I got married in 3 months. God's hand was all over that! We searched for 7 months with God wrestling with where God wanted to take us next (to Minnesota) and that was an awesome experience too. I have seen God’s work in our lives many times with bringing us to the North, through people and events that have happened here. Everything has been wonderful and I feel really blessed, but I still feel like Christ should be more apparent in me and the Fruit of the Spirit hanging all over me.

I tried to start reading the chapter on joy last night. All of a sudden I got overwhelmed thinking about Aaron and what a hard lesson it was to learn joy the first time. I just started begging God to not have such a hard lesson to learn this time through, with learning about joy at this moment in my life. I don't think I could handle a loss right now. Just thinking about that chapter and moment in my life chokes me up. I will wait another night before I try to read this chapter. Please shower me in prayers as I come before God and refresh myself on his true joy for my life.

Posted in: on Tuesday, October 07, 2008 at at 7:45 PM