gifts and goals

 

#493  blue hydrangea blooming in our yard

#494  gift at 8am  reading Colossians 2:6-7  

“Now that you have welcomed the Anointed One, Jesus the Lord, into your lives, continue to journey with Him and allow Him to shape your lives.  Let your roots grow down deeply in Him, and let Him build you up on a firm foundation.  Be strong in the faith, just as you were taught, and always spill over with thankfulness.”

Be strong in your faith? 

Strong?

Spill over with thankfulness?

How about this question…Be thankful for needing strength?

Yes!  I’m thankful for needing Jesus!

Being desperately dependent on Jesus is a gift!

“The joy of the Lord is my strength.”   Nehemiah 8:10

Sharing your story will strengthen you.

Sharing your joys and thankfulness (even hard things to be thankful for) strengthens you because it allows hope to swell and spill from your soul.

Let your story spill over with gratitude for the little things in life, the bigger and big things in life, the hard things in life. 

For a few years I’ve been telling others, encouraging others and guiding others to share their stories and even help them write and make their own book.

But I wasn’t.

And I may have used the excuse that I was too busy, but looking deeper, I don’t think I felt I was strong enough to battle the fear.  Oh, I’m sure I would have had the strength through Christ, if I surrendered it.  And I know God has given me some strengths (like He does everyone) with which I’ve been blessed…we all have weaknesses and the battle of me actually doing what I tell and teach others to do has been my weakness!

But God can redeem those weaknesses because “God’s power is made perfect in our weaknesses. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Cor. 12:8, 12)

The discipline of counting things to be thankful for has strengthened some of my weaknesses.

And proof shows it can work for anybody!

So I’m going to keep counting and sharing because who wouldn’t want more strength?

 

#495  gift at noon  lunch with acquaintance and talked about the Word together…it was really lunch with a sister

#496  gift at 8pm - cutting open a fresh watermelon

#497   laughter with friends about varmints 

#497  bird standing at our back door as if it wanted to come in. 

#498  a moment of rest

#499  God’s grace is sufficient

#500  conversation on phone with the older woman I visit at the retirement home.

#501   I’m half-way to my goal of writing 1,000 gifts…