blessings

Friday, January 3, 2014 (9:46 a.m.)

Lake Arrowhead, CA

Most Holy Father God,

I am here once again thanking You for Your blessings to us. You are so incredibly generous. You have gifted us with family, friends, opportunity and we are grateful.

We may not always recognize Your blessings immediately. It may even take us years to truly see them for what they are. Ah, but when it comes about... “Everything will be happening at once – and everywhere you look, blessings! Blessings like wine pouring off the mountains and the hills” (Amos 9:13).

Blessings. “God's favor and protection”. Blessed Father, I have been experiencing Your blessings upon us for as long as I can remember. Looking back I see Your favor and protection in so many areas. One memory is especially clear.

Thinking back some twenty-five years I was faced with an enormous decision. Driving home from this very same vacation retreat, the mere thought of returning to our everyday life at that time went far beyond being emotionally distressing. Quite near hysteria, the car was stopped. Fresh air was taken in as I walked and sobbed, “I don't want to go back. Please don't make me go back.”

Father God, I know it was YOU that had my back that day. My back. My front. My top, my bottom, my insides, my outsides. These past twenty-five years could never have happened had I not been able to follow Your lead down the hill that day.

In my perilously fragile emotion state at that time I couldn't have recognized Your blessings as “pouring off the mountains and hills.” Looking back I see Your hand. Your guidance. Your leading. From the initial emotionally charged phone call to the mental health coverage we had at the time, to the insightful intake specialist who returned that call, to the counselor I originally saw. ALL fit together by Your protective hand.

Thank You Father! Thank You for the willingness You provided me to do the long hard work to unwind myself from the previously held thought patterns with which I was raised. Thank You for Jake's perfect answer when asked, “How long is all this going to take?” He couldn't say. He knew I would have been devastated to think that 'all this' was not an easy fix.

Thank You Father for leading me to a Christian counselor who was willing to open and close every single session with prayer. Thank You for Your presence in those sessions. As well as every day of my life.

I get to read a comment (for Amos 9:10) in The Life Recovery Bible and be reminded that “Refusal to admit the truth can be dangerous. Outward appearances seemed to deny the truth...Inwardly, however, the people were diseased. Israel's [here read 'my own'] spiritual sickness would ultimately lead to her physical destruction.”

It was! Five years of stiff neck headaches were seriously taking their toll on my health! Trying so hard to look good on the outside was too subtle for me to even recognize at the time.

Ah, but here is the Truth I was able to experience! Comment for verses 11-15, “God has committed Himself to helping His people recover. He plans to restore what is broken and in ruin, changing barren land to a place of unprecedented fruitfulness. This can only happen when we see how helpless we are without God's help and commit our life into His hands. The process will be painful as we grow spiritually, but the end result will be worth it.”

Truer words were never written! The blessings we are currently experiencing could never have come about as they have without that moment all those years ago on the side of the road on this very hill. That moment when blessings truly became “like wine pouring off the mountains and hills.”

Thank You Father. Thank You for reminding me so clearly this morning of whence we have come. You have graced us with blessings untold and we are absolutely grateful. Enable and empower us to use them wisely and well. Thank You Father. I love You so! Amen.

(693 words ~ 10:43 a.m.)