Unbridled Happiness

Full of joy. Complete. Happy.

These words describe me tonight. What a great week this has been. This time last week I was offered a job full time where I’m contracting now. So very thankful for this chance.

I’m happy tonight. Not just a little bit but a whole lot. In the next few months I’m moving to a new place and getting essentially a fresh start. I’m beyond thankful if that’s possible for those who are helping me with this move.

I’m happy that my big furry dog just planted himself beside me and is desperately trying to get my attention away from blogging. I know a lot of people love their dogs. This dog is special.

The day I went to see him to see if I was gonna adopt him I fell in love. It was mutual. Since then he has helped me feel safe, open my heart up to love again and comforts me when I’m anxious or sad.

I’m so thankful tonight to have this full time job starting oct. 1st. Full benefits and insurance. I’ve bee without for so long and it will be good to take care of my health again.

I feel like I’ve had some sort of breakthrough lately. God has been working in my heart and is continuing to change me from the inside out. He’s used my church, my friends and my family in powerful ways.

Tonight I feel free from worry; my anxiety is gone. There remains joy.

Truly God is good.

6 seconds that changed my life

“I wanted to tell you that I filed for divorce yesterday.” 6 seconds before I was cherished and loved. Just six seconds. My stability was torn in two by that statement. My marriage stability, that is! Of course it was over long before the six seconds but that is how long it took for my world to break into smitherings.

We are just one moment away from instability at any given time. One phone call away from 911. One heartbeat away from death. One heartbeat until we enter this world at our birth.

The world is spinning on its axis and the only thing in my world that doesn’t change is one person. Every single other aspect of my life has changed or will change.

Lately I’ve been thinking about change. I realized after some thinking that the very thing I desire the most here on earth is elusive. Stability. It’s natural, right?

Marriages break. Kids rebel. Children die. Parents age. Health fades. Friendships change and sometimes they end. Our world is broken and so are we.

Be careful of what you put your stability in because the only thing that cannot be taken away in an instant is your relationship with God. He is the only stable thing in my life. He is also the only unbreakable thing in my life.

Happiness is related primarily to things. Joy – now that’s what you want. Joy is this amazing gift that God can give you right in the middle of the most unstable of times. It is a knowledge that your hope does not lay in having a successful marriage, happy and well adjusted kids, a great job, new car, a home. Joy is in the relationship with our Father.

For this girl who loves something constant the past few years have been especially hard. Now I’m convinced the only constant on earth is that there are no constants! That is why my constant is my God.

I live in a broken world but I serve a perfect God. A God who planned each and every day of my life before I was even conceived. This could mean my lack of stability down here is for a purpose that I might not ever know while I’m living. I am so looking forward to the day when I can fall into my Savior’s arms and maybe then all these crazy puzzle pieces will make a beautiful picture.

I believe the picture that will be revealed when we get to Heaven will be Jesus. Perhaps all the pieces of my life yield a beautiful picture of Jesus for the world to see. Lord, use my broken pieces to point others back to You.

Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The Time in Between

I’ve had 42 years so far in this life. I’m not sure if I will have tomorrow, we are not promised tomorrow. This is not morbid contemplation but an intense realization that it is the time in between my birth and death that I have this amazing opportunity to live out my life for Christ.

The chance for God to use my words, my actions and even my inactions to honor Him. Of course I do this imperfectly. I am painfully aware if that fact.

I have hopes and dreams for my own life but they pale in comparison to this intense desire God put in me to BE Him to the hurting and broken world. To reflect His goodness and compassion to others as the moon reflects the intense light of the Sun. I want to reflect the intense light of the Son of God.

God has set me free from my past and He is in the process of revealing His journey for my life. I think He takes pleasures in giving me just a glimpse of who He is that entices me to seek Him more deeply.

I want to know God more than I want to be a parent, a sister, a daughter, employee, a member of my community. Everything else pales in comparison to my desire to know Him more and to show and tell others about how amazing He really is and how complex.

On the outside my life feels like it’s imploding. My job is temporary, I will need to find another. My car is on it’s last leg and there is no money to replace it. My expenses exceed my income which is a daily struggle. On all accounts a person would sum up my parts and say that they don’t make a whole but they’d be wrong.

The human part of me hopes that I will not live the rest of my life alone, battling bipolar disorder which threatens my health in many ways. I married planning to stay that way until we died. It was not to be in this life. The pain of that bore a hole in my soul that is inconsolable even after all this time.

My humanity threatens worry but my faith remains fixed upon Him. In the middle if the chaos, in the middle of the journey, yea the battle even, is this unshakable joy that comes only from a passionate and radical God who grants me this sense if joy in the storm. He never promised that it would be clear sailing but He did promise to take the helm when we give our life to Him.

Tonight I ask God to make this time in between my birth and my death into a life that points others to Him. To enter into relationship with others; to use my heart to help others to do just that. You see, cars break, marriages sometimes crumble, health fades. The one and only constant in my entire life is my God and my relationship with Him. I want others to encounter God as I have; as He’s revealed Himself to me.

Grab on, give up your life and you will gain life.

Image courtesy of Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net