joy in God's strength and God's plans

This morning I woke again to feeling overwhelmed and anxious with all that is facing me. The terror of wondering how I will cope with each detail and face each challenge rolled over me, filling my body with tension and my mind with dis-ease. I decided to get up and have a cup of tea and do some routine little things, like writing this blog and reading the devotional one I write for once a week - www.whateverhesays.blogspot.com. Not to mention having my own "quiet time". Being committed to write something every day, and being part of that team that writes the other one is an increasingly wonderful and helpful thing in my life. It forces me to put my thoughts into perspective enough to write something that is honest and real, but true to my relationship with Christ, and with those I know who read my blog, and those who write for the team blog. Hey you out there - you are an important part of the body of Christ for me, and I feel accountable to you, as well as appreciated by you. I knew before I sat down to read and write that God's strength would be with me in all my challenges today and this weekend and next week, next month, next year, etc., but reading the post for today on the team blog brought things most fully into perspective. God is not so concerned with my happiness as my holiness. I know that, have always known that, but I guess being worried means that I am afraid to be unhappy, or afraid to be more unhappy than I already am about some things. I am trying to look at fear these days...or I guess I could say that I need to look more at fear, and understand where it comes from, what to do about it, and what it does to me. As if I don't know. But it is His strength that will get me through, it is His plans that will work out, and it will all be for my holiness, and wholeness will come in that, and some version of happiness, at least something that will lead me more and more into His peace and His joy, which is of course what I truly want. May this day for each of us be a continuing realization of our dependence upon Him, of His faithfulness to us, of His desire to make us all that He is calling us to be, and His capacity to give us all that we need for each moment, hour, day, week, month and year...for all our lives, His grace is sufficient for us.