Bring the Rain

This title & song below seems all too appropriate in this city and on this day since it is yep, you guessed it, raining! The lyrics are at the bottom and the band is Mercy Me if you want to search for it on iTunes. :)

I have a lot of emotion running around in this little heart of mine today. It stems mainly from a real life story I was privileged to read today on my day off of work. It's a story that never ends, although her life is literally ending on this earth today. Today. Wow. She is taking her last breath today with her husband, family, and friends sitting by waiting for her last breath to come & go. Never to return. Not here anyways. Not in that body and not in this place. I watched video blog after video blog of a young woman my same age, my same name dying from cancer...and she even looks a lot like me too! :) She had the funnest personality and I caught myself wishing I had run across her story earlier so I could at least have been friends with her via facebook or twitter. I don't know why her life grabs me, ? Just 1 hour before I was exposed to her world I was having a fight with everything & everyone today because it wasn't playing out the way I thought it should or wanted it to. I quickly realized that the breath in my lungs, the ability to walk, see, hear, sing & speak were all good and perfect gifts from above. James 1:17. Sarah Chidgey pronounced this same truth on one of her video blogs with such confidence and assurance, I scarce could take it in. She counted her God still consistently good to her, unchangingly good. She said at one point in & out of pain from rounds of chemotherapy that she could get through knowing that the body of Jesus Himself was marred for us & our sins. Even in the midst of recently marrying the man of her dreams, looking so much forward to a lifetime with him of marriage, serving the Lord together, babies, trips, community, seeing people come to faith...watching Jesus come into the heart of her husband and change him daily. I know this firsthand and can't imagine leaving this now. Not today, tomorrow or even next year. Maybe these are just the ramblings of a hurting heart, melancholy from thinking of how we really are just a mist and all of this in front of me could be gone tomorrow. I want to learn from this story, this real life and not take my life her on this earth for granted. I so much want to be excited about heaven and not be fearful of letting this life pass. It's crazy that I haven't honestly come to grasp it as much as I do today after having met this beautiful soul, Sarah. I can't wait to see you in heaven and spend eternity getting to know you more. I pray for your husband, Eric, that God will daily come close to comfort him and shield him from the temptations to become bitter because you're gone. I ask the same for your family & friends as well. See you soon Sarah.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone. I hope you cherish, love and serve the ones you love!


"Bring The Rain"

I can count a million times
People asking me how I
Can praise You with all that I've gone through
The question just amazes me
Can circumstances possibly
Change who I forever am in You
Maybe since my life was changed
Long before these rainy days
It's never really ever crossed my mind
To turn my back on you, oh Lord
My only shelter from the storm
But instead I draw closer through these times
So I pray

Bring me joy, bring me peace
Bring the chance to be free
Bring me anything that brings You glory
And I know there'll be days
When this life brings me pain
But if that's what it takes to praise You
Jesus, bring the rain

I am Yours regardless of
The dark clouds that may loom above
Because You are much greater than my pain
You who made a way for me
By suffering Your destiny
So tell me what's a little rain
So I pray

Holy, holy, holy
Is the Lord God Almighty

by: Mercy Me

He counsels me

Ephesians 1:17 (New American Standard Bible)

17that the (A)God of our Lord Jesus Christ, (B)the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of (C)wisdom and of (D)revelation in the knowledge of Him.

If you read the previous blogpost, you may or may not have searched for the text that I referenced for the New Year. The above states exactly what God spoke to me and has been speaking ever since. I would like to say thus far, He has been extremely gracious in giving me wisdom daily about a lot of different things. Some I asked about, some I did not. James 1:5 didn't say you got to pick & choose which bits & pieces of wisdom we receive. If you ask, simply, it will ALL be given to you...so prepare yourself when you ask because He doesn't hold back anything.

This new season, this new year, has already taken me for a loop and it's not even the end of January yet. There are movements going on in my spirit that I cannot put into words, not even in the privacy of my journal. I sense the Spirit praying for me with words I cannot express and it scares me a bit. Not in a way that makes me doubt God's goodness but in that way where you know you're about to step into yet another winepress in order to sharpen your faith and your character. I don't resist this because I don't want to see the result of this threshing. I resist this because I know it will require me to venture into new, uncomfortable situations that seem beyond my ability to walk through. I doubt the God inside of me. The Spirit that tells me, "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength."(Philippians 4:13)

So far, He is fulfilling this word in my life as promised. I am thankful that He disciplines me because it reminds me of His great, unfailing love that always shows up no matter how I fall short. Thank you Father for this love that quenches every longing inside of me. I pray for those reading, that You will stir in their spirit what You have stirred in mine. Amen.

Blessed,
SEA