Changing of Seasons.....another pic by Tim!

Sorry it's been a while since my last post! I got a nasty cold that knocked me out a bit and I am just now coming around again. I look forward to your comments!

It's amazing to me how fast things can change....not necessarily in regards to the weather or the leaves changing colors, but in the path our lives take....an unplanned pregnancy, losing a job, a death in the family, a blessing out of the blue....

As some of you know, Tim and I had been praying for God's direction and guidance in our lives and the more we prayed for His best, the more icky stuff came....we'd get sick or someone in the family called with bad news or Tim and I just seemed to communicate poorly. Ya ever have those days? Or years? :) Sometimes those periods seem to last forever and we wonder if God is still working on us...if Jesus is still interceding on our behalf.

As autumn came this year, I was filled with a sense of excitement, an anticipation that SOMETHING was going to change...change was inevitable...even if it was just the weather. But God was preparing my spirit for a change of heart....stretching me more in ways I thought I'd never survive. And it was in this stretching that He revealed His direction and His plans for me...and Tim, too! I won't share all those plans now, as I will have to leave that for another blog post, but I will say that when troubles and icky life junk happen....God is always just around the corner with the open door of peace and rest. It doesn't always appear when WE think it should, but His purposes for us are always for good and His times of testing are always necessary.

Hebrews 3:7-19 is a fabulous passage to read when going through trials......

"So, as the Holy Spirit says:
"Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion,
during the time of testing in the desert,
where your fathers tested and tried me
and for forty years saw what I did.
That is why I was angry with that generation,
and I said, 'Their hearts are always going astray,
and they have not known my ways.'
So I declared on oath in my anger,
'They shall never enter my rest.' "

See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first. As has just been said:
"Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion."
Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the desert? And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed? So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief."

When trials come...hang on TIGHT to your beliefs, your faith in God's precious plans for you stated in Jeremiah 29:11 or read James 1:2-6 and see that trials build endurance and perseverance for a life lived in Jesus' Name. That's a FULL LIFE! When the Creator God is running your life, you know that nothing is wasted. Going through trials right now? Know that God sees and is just around the corner with direction, rest, clarity and joy. Stay tuned and be blessed!