Love and Somance!

Hope everyone had a loving Valentine's Day. I took these pics on a recent nature walk. I recently ended my relationship with my boyfriend of fifteen months, but I embraced my singleness with JOY this Valentines. I spent the evening with my girlfriends and was reminded that there is something beautiful about the connection between sisters that you will never find with a man. I love it. I like to call this connection between female friends somance much like the more popular term of bromance! So, I just wanted to remind the many single ladies out there like myself to be thankful for the love of so many others around you. We can be thankful for the love of our families, friends, and Savior! We have so much to offer the world right now in our season of singleness! We have so much love to give!

Summer loving in my garden

Ode to Nana

The 15th anniversary of my grandmother's death was recently. She lived a long and happy life (up until she got sick with dementia the last several months of her life). She was almost 87, when she died, when I was just 13. I wrote a detailed post on my other blog, but I would like to include a poem here, that I wrote when I was just a young teenager, about a year after she died. Thanks, Nana, for all you did to make me a better person. I was so shy growing up that I didn't have a lot of friends, but you were always there for me to talk to growing up. I know you are smiling down on me with the angels. I know you are not just "resting in peace", you are dancing and clapping in praise to Jesus with all your might!

Nana's Song

Needing to hear some good advice

Needing to see a gentle face

I miss my Nana tonight

The smile of a happy greeting

The voice and the look of a deepful thought

Yes I miss her as I miss as I hear my Nana's song!

The song so full of love and beauty.

Together we hung the clothes across the line

Basking in the greatness of the simple moment

In the smells and love of summer sunshine

A ladybug landed upon the woven basket

“Look Nana” the child cried with glee

Oh yes, that is a little wingling.

In the excitement of the moment

The freshly cleaned linen dropped to the ground,fin

The child expected an angry word

But was held close in the loving arms of Nana

In that special way which makes a child feel like gold.

That night only one was willing to go

To go to her pretty church upon the hill

Arm in arm with Nana I proudly walked.

I hear her voice still as she said

This is my baby, my Libby's child.

The “Old Rugged Cross” we sang that night

Her voice so strong and sweet

She tells me of her Father's love

O how I miss her so!

Tonight, I miss the song of Nana

Wanting that heart to listen with care

Tonight I miss the different beauty

Strengthened by the wisdom's touch

Tonight I hear her singing

Singing with the angels

In our final home up in the sky!

Befriending Faithfulness

Psa 37:3 Trust in the LORD, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.
I will probably be rambling, but I have been sitting for over an hour meditating on a verse from the Word and felt I should share my meditations with you all. This verse of Psalm 37:3 has been beside me for a while. I memorized it and claimed it as my own when I was working (doing good) alongside the singles ministry at Ramstein AFB, Germany. When I first arrived at to Liberty I struggled with anxiety, especially due to the fact that some of my expected finances did not come through. I also doubted that I was really where God wanted me to be, but after only a couple weeks here I knew God had called me to be a student here. It was at this point that Psalm 37:3 revisited me and spoke to me in a new way.
Psa 37:3 Trust in the LORD, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.
I was going to choose to trust God this semester as I let him use me at Liberty wherever He needed me. I decided especially to commit my finances to him, and committed to seek God first before I made any financial decision. I felt like a boulder had lifted from my heart when I gave this worry over my finances to the Lord. When I looked up the word used for trust here in the Hebrew dictionary, I saw that it was also a word which also can mean to "head for refuge". What a picture of trust that by giving something over to the Lord we are allowing Him to be our refuge or sanctuary. By giving something as trivial as my doubts and my finances to God I was allowing Him to save me once again from my self. I can dwell in this land of Liberty where God has placed me because He is continually the one in whom I will have refuge when things seem uncertain. To trust is to have confidence in something. I certainly do not have confidence in myself, but I can have confidence in the Lord who has been continually faithful. Anyhow, the part of this simple verse that has ministered to me the most these past few weeks is the command to befriend faithfulness. What does it mean to befriend faithfulness. I thought of my lack of trust my first couple weeks here. I certainly was not letting any idea of faithfulness be my friend. I was instead befriending the sin of anxiety which then led me to befriend a sense of despair (which is surely a sin as despair is to lose hope by looking away from our Master). In a sense, in worrying so much, I had been befriending - becoming intimate - with the darkness of the enemy (SIN!). I must continually befriend faithfulness by putting my hope in God, for He alone is truly faithful. I must make it my aim to befriend faithfulness by focusing and trusting on the Word of God. In those times when I am tempted to worry or to have doubts about where God has placed me, I need to head to, to run to the refuge which is God's Holy Word. What about you, my friends through the fellowship of Christ? Have you been befriending faithfulness lately or have you been befriending some other enemy of God such as worry, doubt, comparison, lust, selfishness, or pride (to name just a few)? O Lord give us a greater desire to seek You for refuge through prayer and Your Word when we are tempted to doubt Your goodness and faithfulness. I pray this morning that the Lord may teach us to befriend His faithfulness more day by day as we continually seek HIS face. Most of all, we desire to be faithful to You, God, as You have been faithful to us. Lord Jesus Christ, who was faithful to the faithless by dying on the cross for them, we thank you for being the friend to Sinners. We thank you that you desire an intimate friendship with us. We know our weaknesses Lord, but we come to you, our faithful Savior, for refuge from ourselves and our sin. Apart from You and the strength we have in You, O Lord, it is not in our capacity to do good or be faithful. Forgive us for befriending temptation and sin rather than the faithfulness, which comes from trusting in You. Amen.
Psa 37:3 Trust in the LORD, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.