Perspective

Do you ever feel like just when things are going perfectly wonderful in your world, something happens that makes it all come to a screeching halt?  For me, this tends to happen right before and usually not too long after some big blessing happens in my life.  Satan usually pitches something really crappy at me to make me lose my focus, I regain it and receive all the wonderful things God had in store for me, and then not long after that Satan does something else to steal my perspective and make me feel like everything is crashing down around me...

What does it mean to "claim His promises"?  For me, right now today, it means putting my hand on my growing belly and saying, "Thank you God.  You did this, you can can do anything."  Matthew 10:29 says (in The Message translation):

 “What’s the price of a pet canary? Some loose change, right? And God cares what happens to it even more than you do. He pays even greater attention to you, down to the last detail—even numbering the hairs on your head! So don’t be intimidated by all this bully talk. You’re worth more than a million canaries..."

And today, after pulling up in my driveway after one of the worst mornings ever (dealing with being basically thieved out of $800+ by Enterprise for renting a car for 5 days while we figured out our long term car solution...long story not worth telling or putting myself in a tailspin about again...), I said to God, "I can feel my baby kicking and moving in my belly.  I can hear that sweet heartbeat.  You have created life inside of me and are sustaining it as we speak.  I have no money left.  I have a fridge with nothing more than bare essentials in it.  I have a stressed husband who is wading his way through the most demanding clinical rotation of his cores.  I have 6 more weeks before I get more money in my account.  And I'm out of ideas.  So I'm claiming your promise that You will provide for my every need.  I will not go hungry, my sweet little baby will continue to grow happy and healthy completely unaware of the unrest its Mommy and Daddy are feeling right now, and if we keep pressing forward in this endeavor that YOU have ordained, You've promised to provide."


He WILL provide what we need.  He WILL make sure my baby is safe.  He WILL make sure my husband is healthy.  And all of this turmoil and unrest and uncertainty is only for a time.  In due time, we will be able to breath again.  We will look at our bank account and not have a panic attack.  We will be in our own place preparing for our sweet baby's arrival.  We will anticipate the overwhelming blessings that are to come in the following months and years and decades.  And in maybe even as little as 3 years, we will look back on this whirlwind of crap that we lived through and laugh and say, "Wow.  THAT was a doozy!", but we'll be no worse for the wear because of it.  As a matter of fact, we'll be better.  

We are still walking through that refining fire.  Maybe we always will be.  Maybe that's what life is supposed to be.  Maybe we are supposed to be constantly changing, growing, improving, learning.  And when our work here in the "refining fire" is done, He'll create the ultimate change in us...CHANGING us from Glory into Glory.  Until then, we remain His good and faithful servants.  His perfectly imperfect creations which He would never allow to come to ruin.  So we're reaching, God.  We're claiming Your promises.  This growing life in my body is a testament to Your unfailing Love and Power, and today I need a little drop of that Divinity to quench this dry land we are walking on...

Water into Wine...

**UPDATE AS OF 8:15 TONIGHT--Aaaand...He answers my prayers again.  So faithful, so loving, so constant.  Oh how He loves me...**