Personal Psalm 415

Personal Psalm 415
You hear my hurt; 
   my confusion of your plan. 
But your salvation comes from eternity past; 
   where you planned my name for the book of life.
You have planned good works for me; 
   that I might walk in them; 
   knowing of them through faith in Christ Jesus. 
His blood alone grants me your righteousness; 
   the law and your profits assure me it is so. 
Show me one instant of your glory; 
   and my soul will be satisfied forever. 
So I will work for your kingdom;
   that I might find rest in your house; 
   as my brother and Lord has promised. 
For He is my king; 
   yet He calls me friend. 
He bids to bids me to store up treasures in his house; 
  that I might worship Him there forever.


PS I've been numbering these with the date- I didn't start at zero!

Personal Psalms

Recently, I've begun rewriting my prayers as Psalms. What I mean by that is that after I study a passage, I pray a response to it, then I read the prayer aloud, then write it in psalm format. I enjoy writing poetry, so this has been a neat way to solidify what I read and learned and prayed in another way. So I thought I'd begin sharing them here as I don't really know what to write these days. I'm going to add in the Scripture I read first so you can see the context of my prayer. Here it goes!

"Therefore, you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgement on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things... Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, no knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?" Romans 2:1,4

Personal Psalm 413

You give grace and fulfillment of the Law;
   but I snatch back the Law.
I use it in brutal condemnation;
   the truth without love;
   honesty without mercy.
I stand above;
   aloof and unsympathetic.
Yet my own judgement is my condemnation;
   my harsh words seal the case against me.
Forgive me, Righteous One;
   wash the stink of false righteousness away from me.
You granted me freedom and mercy;
  how have I hoarded it!
I will pass Your mercy on;
   I will shout grace from the highest hills.
For You set this captive free;
   so I will storm the gates of condemnation in Your name.
Your strength will guide me;
   grant me to never forget the price of my freedom.

Funky Town

I've been in a bit of a funk recently. I think especially since I got home from my mom's and immediately ended up 2 steps behind. I'm finally caught up, I think. I'd gotten out of my routine of having a morning devotional. I felt disconnected from God and didn't know what to do. I'm doing Experiencing God with a group from church, and 2 studies to make up really did help me get back into a routine. Henry Blackaby presents guidelines on how to study the Word to learn to hear God and how to write about it. I tried it today and found it very helpful in guiding my study. I'll try it a few more times and then write about it.

Ok, so that doctor's appointment last week. He said he thought we were rushing into surgery and that any surgical procedure would likely damage whatever fertility I might have left. Then he gave us several worst case scenarios regarding the surgery- one included a bowel resection. Really? Needless to say we weren't real thrilled. Interestingly, I was very nervous for a couple of days before the appointment. More nervous than normal- as seeing doctors puts me a bit on edge. I was so glad A came with. I almost cried when we left. Then, taking the elevator down, 2 really pregnant women got on with us. I wanted to kick them out and make them wait for the next elevator. How mean am I?

Tomorrow. I finally see the surgeon. I'm a bit nervous, but nothing like next week. The guy I'm seeing is very well respected and he's an expert on gynecological surgery. Actually, my surgery is supposed to be robotically assisted. Maybe I'll be the bionic woman when they're done! No? Oh well. A girl can dream.

Today, I hope to actually get some sewing done. I suppose we'll see how that goes!

Finally back at it...

So I've been home for a week and been behind since I got set foot off the plane! Isn't that how it goes? The quilt got done, but the picture taking was a nightmare- they were horrible. We bought a new camera the next day. I'm pledging myself not to wait until the last day for any project. And you can totally hold me accountable to that, too!

Had a doc appointment yesterday and I'm not sure what to write about it yet. It was with a reproductive endocrinologist. I still have a lot of thoughts bouncing around in my brain, but I can say that no matter what any doctor say, I believe God is in control and will be working His purposes in my life.

I'm really enjoying my new camera. I feel very artsy with it- so easy to get good pictures.

Here are a few for you....

 Gracie, being patient with her photo shoot

 close up on the quilt

 One more close up

 The whole quilt

 Nightcrawler- still for 2 seconds at a time- I finally managed to get some good pics of him

 From a small statue near our apartment

Camellias are blooming here! So pretty!

Well, friends, I'll be here more often again... sorry for the long absence. I did have a great great trip. I'll let you know some of what I was up to later in the week!

Introversion....

I have always considered myself an introvert... well, not exactly always. There was some time over the past couple of years that I didn't like to be alone and always wanted company. But I'm discovering here as we've moved that I truly am an introvert. I enjoy being alone.

As a child, as much as I loved school and seeing my friends, when I came home I went straight to my room for at least a half hour. My mom hated when she had to make appointments right after school for me because I was a beast if I didn't get that alone time. She would ignore me as much as possible on the car ride to the doctor or dentist. And I pretty much ignored her too. Then, I could function again.

Being with people has always drained me, although I do enjoy it. Making new friends has been harder than I thought it would be, and there were a few weeks when it was really tough. But now I have a few friends and I'm getting out of the house regularly, and I'm pretty happy. I would totally take more friend time, but I'm doing all right where I'm at.

I've joined a day time ladies Bible study. I'm really loving it. I'm learning from the study for sure, but I'm so blessed by the other women in my class. They are wise and I just soak up their knowledge!

Beyond that- I'm leaving Sunday to go see my mom for 10 days! Ten whole days! I'm very excited. I'll be there for her birthday and we have a lot of fun plans. We're going to quilt shop hop our way down to Saint Louis and back. I think I might try to convince her to go to a movie (The Vow looks really good and I've heard good things from friends). And I get to see some friends while I'm there too. All in all I think it's going to be a great time.

Before I get to leave I'm working on a quilt that I'm submitting for an exhibit with the International Quilt Festival. I would love love for it to make it in and I've been working hard all week! Check out my other blog for an update on that tomorrow!

Well, that's all for me today. I hope you are all having a blessed week!

Stupidity

You know what my problem is? I can't just do whatever it is I feel the Lord calling me to. I need to get myself in there and make a mess of it and then not do it. Wow. I am ridiculous. I can't seem to get out of my own way. This needs some serious work and heart examining to figure out why I do this.

Seeing God in the midst of pain

As I told you, a friend asked me to post on how I see God specifically blessing me finding me personally in the midst of pain. Well. First, sometimes it's hard to see, but I do believe God desired me to write about this because something pretty amazing happened about 2 days after I received that email. I had a perfect day.

I learned a lot on this perfect day. I slept well and got up early, with no lingering sleepy fog. And then, everything just went right. I had errands to run, and the stores had exactly what I needed and I got to it easily. I had to make a couple appointments for while I'm in Peoria (my wonderful awesome fabulous dental hygienist promised she would see me for as long as I wanted and who'd give that up?!?!) for the dentist and eye doctor. The dentist appointment scheduling went well, Reva fit me in on a Friday morning. Now, the eye doc. Turns out, she's only in the office I go to one day every other week (their office is literally across the street from the dentist's office). She's in on Fridays, and the day I wanted happened to be the Friday she's there. If you know me, you know how good it is for me personally that phone calls go well, because I loathe making them. I have made Andrew call and cancel or make appointments for me because I'm so weird about it. So all those things blessed me in a special way.

I thought to myself- this must be my lucky day! I should buy a lottery ticket! Just kidding! No, I said that to my mom as a joke, but I don't gamble.

So, I had the most wonderful morning, and so I decided to sew! And sewing went well, I made some mistakes I had to fix, but I didn't let them get me down. And that's where God showed me what the point of a perfect morning was. I could have given up my joy because of the setbacks, but I wanted to keep it. And God whispered..... no one can steal your joy. You can give it up, but nothing can take it from you by force.

Life is all about choices. Hard choices, easy choices, simple choices, complex choices. One after the next, marching thought our days. Choice after choice. Joy is one of those choices. I'm keeping mine in the midst of the trial. I keep smiling and loving and laughing and growing and giving. If I stop in the midst of this hard time of pain and difficulty, I will start crying... I will die inside. My joy is what keeps my spirit alive and aware of what God is doing around me and in my life.

On hard days, I pull away from God. And the day gets harder. I don't want to see him in the midst of a really hard day. I want Him to go away! Then I begin to struggle spiritually and physically. It's a trap I fall for every time it's presented. every time. This is week, on the hard days, I'm going to cling to God like the child that I am before Him. Amen?