Rejoice in the Lord ALWAYS

I'm going through a little bit of a hard time, but I just want to declare how much the Lord has blessed me in this time. Usually when things like this happen I'm not strong at all. I fall apart. I do whatever you're not supposed to do to hide from the pain and sadness. But this time it's like God is holding me up. Like He is keeping me in His hand. I know he will never let go. Things may seem bad or hopeless, but I have so much peace. God will never let me fall. I can say that with so much certainty. With more certainty than I know the bed I am sitting on will hold me. God is keeping me safe. He is close to the brokenhearted.

And I realised two things in this time. I've been thinking about this for a while but is practially experiencing it now. When things are bad, when we cannot see God's plan or feel His hand, when we hurt and life sucks, and we STILL serve God. When we serve God even though we don't have a reason to. Then God wins. Then the devil loses. It's easy to serve God when things are going well. Can you not fall apart, can you stay on track, can you STILL SERVE HIM AND DECLARE HIS GLORY WHEN THINGS ARE BAD???

And the second thing, what we do NOW, how we handle things now and spend our time now, determines our future. I'd spent a lot of time with God the past few months, and I hadn't realised the impact then, but I'm picking the fruits now. The time with him previously, is paying off now. I am stronger and at peace now. God is still my rock even when my world is shaking. And how I handle things now will determine my future. If I run away now and fill up my time with things that keep my mind off my pain, I won't learn anything. I won't become even stronger for next time. I won't learn to rely on God. I will simply be running away. But if I face it now, however painful it may be, if I turn to God now and rely on Him like it's life or death...that will determine my future. That will make me strong for things to come. I hav ethe chance and opportunity now to shape myself into the kind of woman that God wants me to be. I will rejoice in my suffering!
I will declare his beautiful name!!


And a poem...it happens when I let my mind loose sometimes.

It’s almost like sadness
The way I feel about you
The way I think about you and I’m sure
That my heart is hurting
I vaguely remember what sadness feels like
It is this feeling
Isn’t it?

It’s almost like a dream
The way I think of us
Of the lifetime that passed in the space
Of a few days
Or maybe it had simply been in my mind
Almost like a dream

It’s almost like missing you
When I try to remember how I felt about you
Missing what we had
If it had been something
Or maybe we had simply imagined it to be true

It’s almost like I lost something special
But I can’t quite remember why
Like a vague feeling of regret
Is it that?
Or simply the thought of what might have been?
How can I forget so quickly

Else it was simply in my mind
Maybe I’d simply dreamed it all

Maybe it was really nothing at all