Surprise Day & Psalm 143:8

I have a BIG Surprise for all of you.

Well 2 Really!!!!

And . . .

They are so much Fun!

In fact—I have actually, literally “held” one of my fun surprises in my own hands.

Ok. Ok. I know when enough is enough.

Drum Roll Please . . .

In late August I received a publication in the mail. It is a Quarterly Devotional magazine.

And . . .

My devotional is on November 23rd!

I can’t show you the written devotional or share the content due to compliance with the publishing group, but please join me in celebrating this news. Can you believe the Lord led me down the writing path? Me either! I can genuinely say–It has been all Him!

What’s so important about this little, tiny, around 200ish words devotional?

It opened a world of writing that I didn’t even realize was inside of me. Trust me when I say I never, ever planned to write a book.

And this brings me to surprise #2.

Every week in October I’m going to release a small smidgen from a chapter of the book that I have been working on for the past 22 months. You guys have walked this road with me and I’m so excited to share back with you.

I have been working with my friend Shea for the past 3-4 months to do the grammar and content editing. Currently, two copies of the whole book have been sent to other friends for final editing. One set is reading for Biblical accuracy, and the other is reading for content that might be vague or not clear because they do not know all the details of our story. When these are back, we should be ready to send out the final copy to the publisher.

Y’all–it’s getting real! This is a huge undertaking, and it’s almost finished. (Feel free to get up and dance around wherever you are–I promise no one will stare, laugh, point, or think you are crazy!)

And now here we go. Here’s a small part from the Preface when I am describing how I began to pray for the Lord to humble me in preparation for our move to Honduras to work with children who were experiencing abuse or neglect.

Looking back on the first time I prayed for the Lord to humble me, I’m sure the Lord was shaking his head and laughing.  I prayed words like, “Now Lord, I don’t know what you have in mind, but I’m praying this prayer out of obedience not because I really want to be humbled.”  Y’all let’s keep it real—who really wants to be humbled? I sure didn’t.  But not telling God the truth about how we are really feeling is pointless.  God knows our hearts and our minds.  He is intimate with our every feeling. And guess what?  He loves us still the same. 

Over the next few weeks and months, I prayed an authentic prayer for the Lord to use my life and to humble me in whatever way He needed for me to be used in the way He intended. I can honestly say that over time, I was willing to let God use my life according to His desires.  How would I serve the people and the children of Honduras if I wasn’t willing to put away my desires?  I realized the need to live a lifestyle of servanthood daily.  Of course, at the time, I had no idea that God was going to allow our lives to be totally disrupted by a life and death medical crisis. It’s probably a good thing too—I’m not sure I would ever have been ready for what was going to happen.  Almost two years after beginning to pray this prayer, I was rushed for what we thought was an emergency appendectomy to a private hospital in Honduras, but instead woke up to a diagnosis of cancer.

Of course, I’m leaving you hanging. Sorry about that. (Not really–LOL!)

Be assured our whole journey of walking through a diagnosis of ovarian cancer is told throughout the book, but more importantly are the lessons of how we have learned to trust in God wholeheartedly along the way.

Learning the lessons was rarely easy, but I am so glad to be sitting where I am now and trusting in Jesus with my life. Our verse for the week is one of my new favorites because it shows us that King David too had learned the joy of trusting in God with his life.

Psalm 143:8 tells us that the dawning of the day itself brings word of the unfailing love of God. To me, the morning represents the promise of a new day and hope of a fresh start. Every day, since the creation of the sun, the sun has risen in the east. (There is one exception found in Joshua 10:12-13.) The majestic display of the beginning of our day points us to the creator of the universe and His unfailing love.

The words, “For I have put my trust in you,” remind me to look to the One who is trustworthy. They also show me that I have to be the one to choose to trust Him. When I put my trust in Jesus, then I know that I can trust Him to guide me and show me the way to go because I trust Him with my very life.

There is no other place I’d rather be than trusting in the One who created me. How about you? Where are you on your trust journey?

Today I challenge you to spend a little time searching for verses in the Bible about trust. Pour over them and see how God will begin to work through His words in your life. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing a few of the ones that have helped me to trust in God over the circumstances. Hopefully, you too will find some new favorites that will lead you to a deeper trust in our mighty God.