Praise the God who gives and takes away!

This blog was actually written on December 14, 2008:

This can only start one way: the Lord is good and His love is perfect, enduring, and more satisfying than anything. My heart, my mind, my soul, my outstretched arms and my guided steps all yearn for Him and in yearning find that He is always faithful.

Romans 8 – He works FOR the good. It doesn’t say anything about making everything good. God never promises (post fall) that we won’t feel pain or hardship, but He does promise that He can use pain, hardship, or whatever other situation towards good for His people.

Pastor Dave talked about this in church today and I immediately related it back to what I’ve learned over the past few days. Since school ended for the semester, I’ve been constantly working, the only times I haven’t are the 8 hours in between 16 hour shifts where I drive home, shower, catch a few hours of sleep, and make the trip back to St. Joe’s Center (with the exception of this morning since I didn’t work a double so I could go to church). I was not at all looking forward to the madness of cramming in seven shifts in four days and as I left school at 2:00 on Thursday to drive straight to work, I wasn’t exactly in the best spirits. But even in my sin, God has worked at my heart, chipping away the plaque and making it more tender and filled with His love.

On the drive home from work, I was so in awe of the majesty of God revealed through His creation that I actually started to cry. A bonus of working until 7:00 am in the winter is that the timing is perfect for when the sun is breaking over the horizon. By the time I left work and was on my way home, the sun was creeping over the tops of ice glazed trees. The few light clouds that were hanging in the sky were the perfect offset from the hues of reds and oranges and purples. Okay, so my description does absolutely no justice to how beautiful the scene actually was. But trust in the fact that it indeed was powerfully beautiful, overwhelmingly so. Then as I drove down Cortez Road meditating on the Lord’s goodness and praising Him, He showed me yet another beauty: the moon was still visible in the winter sky and it was magnificent. The sky was cloudless surrounding it and as the moon was facing the sunrise, the sky was a lucid blue. Later that morning I learned on the news that the moon hasn’t appeared so large since 1993 and won’t again for another 8 years. Thanks for letting me witness its beauty, Lord. It was quite spectacular to behold.