PR

Also, please pray for a friend of mine.  She is in my bible study, and is such a beautiful display of Christ's love to everyone around her.  Her faith is so incredibly inspiring, and her strength is clearly a reflection of her close walk with the Lord.  Her sister has been diagnosed possibly with acute myeloid leukemia, and they have caught it early, but still.  This is a trying time for a family, and for a girl so young, but this woman of God, and her family, will only use this experience to strengthen their faith in Christ and glorify His holy name.  So if you read this, please just take a moment and pray. 

A change in the weather

Sometimes, especially towards the dog days of summer, when it starts to feel like the heat will never dissipate and the sunshine has burned through the atmosphere, we start to think that this is the year.  This is the year that summer is going to stay forever and we're never going to get to wear cute winter coats or see spring blossoms or lazy falling leaves ever, ever again.  However, if I think back really far, like, 6 months, then I remember that I felt this same feeling about winter!  Okay, so last winter was like, the longest and coldest and rainiest and worstest winter ever, BUT we still got a gorgeous (if short-lived) spring and a blistering summer.  Seasons change, it's a fact of life, it's how God created the world, it's a wondrous thing. 

So no, my revelation for the day was not that there are seasons, or even that there are seasons in our lives, with friends, with jobs, with everything.  I noticed as I was running laps earlier, watching the pretty sky and the moon and the white cottonballs...I mean clouds...that the clouds move.  One lap, they were completely covering the moon and the only real light I had were the nicely spaced streetlamps in the neighborhood (thank you Chapel Hill for your affluence!).  The next, the clouds had formed a cute little halo around the moon and were singing its' praises!  It's like those rainy weeks that come move in and drizzle on my parade and make me feel as if the sun has ceased to exist.  I mean, think about the worst, darkest, most awesome thunderstorm you've ever experienced.  In the midst of the lightning and the booming thunder, how on earth can we truly believe that somewhere else, the sun is shining and it's a beautiful day?  But that's kind of like faith, isn't it?  How can we believe, in the midst of pain, sickness, deep hurt, that the Lord is good and His love is beyond measure? 

Because that IS faith.  His Word testifies to it.  Our fellow believers testify to His goodness and provision.  Our own lives have so many examples of Him watching over us, guiding us, holding us up and blessing our boots off. 

The Son is shining. 


But Christ is faithful as a Son over God's house.  And we are his house, if we hold onto our courage and the hope of which we boast.  Hebrews 3:6