Desperate for God

We are all on the mend here. Still left with sniffles and coughs; but up and running. Praise the Lord. A whole week with five kids sick is not any fun! It was amazing to me. I realized how much I depend upon the kids to help me with things around the house. When they are all sick - there is no help; and added work to top it off! I am glad that they are feeling better. We hit the ground running today with our school schedule. It feels good to be back to 'normal'.

God has been and is doing a work in my heart. What a year this has been! I can not even begin to express to you all how difficult the past few months have been. So much has been going on in my heart and life. Great discouragement has been there a great deal of time; and spiritually things have seemed very dark. My heart has been filled with questions - pondering the things of God; and trying so hard to understand Him.

In the past month there have been several times when I have been awakened from sleep with these questions on my heart. I have wanted so much to understand and to know what God is doing, why He is doing it; and what He is desiring for me to do through it all. There has been few answers. To be completely honest with you, God has been silent much of the time. His silence has been difficult. I have begged Him one request most often, "Teach me to pray, Lord!" The matter of prayer being one of the deep issues of greatest question.

I am so glad that I serve a God that is never far away! (Even when He seems so quiet - He is always near.) I will say that I have had to accept that fact by faith; for feelings seemed to tell me that He was far from me. Last night at church God did a deep work in my heart. So clearly through the preaching and through His Word He spoke! I can not tell you how real He was to me last night! What a blessing to have Him clearly give understanding to questions that I had been asking over and over. I left church revived! The prayer of my heart last night and today has been, "Make me desperate, Lord, for you!"

Desperation makes a person do things that complacency looks at as odd. A desperate mother wanting to help her drowning child will throw off all inhibitions and dive into water - no matter the time of day or who is watching to get to that child. She will take no thought of what others will think or what they will say. Her only thought is for the child in need of her assistance. I want to be desperate for God. To follow His leading, to be obedient to Him no matter what others think. Desperation makes the view of all else dim.

So, today, amid the busy schedule of our days my thoughts have been on Him. My heart has been talking with Him all the day. Telling Him I love Him, thanking Him for His provision, His care, His mercy and grace. Confessing my faults to Him and taking comfort in the fact that He is changing me - it is not a work of my flesh - but rather a yielding to the Spirit. How thankful I am that He does speak; and that when He is silent His is doing a deeper work. He is drawing me close. Near to the heart of God.

I trust He is near to you today. Thanks for stopping by, I am so glad you did!

Blessings,

~Martie