Rest in the Lord

Happy Friday girls of God's heart!

We are now about a week and a half away from Christmas... the birthday that we anticipate all year as believers in Christ.

This is my most favorite time of the year!  I however, will admit that it is a struggle for me to not become overly busy during this month.  Do you struggle with feelings of chaos and stress around the holidays?  Do you have the added emotional turmoil of dealing with difficult family or grieving the absence of a loved one?  I know that the holidays can bring many unwanted thoughts and feelings for some of us as well.

I recently read something that really impacted me.  It's a quote by a woman named Hannah Whitall Smith, who lived in the mid 1800's to early 1900's.  Read what she has to say and see if you can take something away from it to soothe your soul...

"Do you recollect the delicious sense of rest with which you have sometimes gone to 

bed at night, after a day of great exertion and weariness?  How delightful was the 

sensation of relaxing every muscle, and letting your body go in a perfect abandonment 

of ease and comfort.  The strain of the day had ceased for a few hours at least, and the work 

for the day had been thrown off.  You no longer had to hold up an aching head or a weary 

back.  You trusted yourself to the bed in an absolute confidence, and it held you up, without 

effort, or strain, or even thought on your part.  You rested.  Let this analogy teach you what

 it means to rest on the Lord.  Let your souls lie down upon His sweet will, as your bodies 

lie down in your beds at night,  Relax every strain and lay off every burden.  Let yourselves 

go in perfect abandonment of ease and comfort, sure that when He holds you up you are 

perfectly safe."

pic source

Be Still and Know

All of the following things have happened in my life the last month:

• My husband and I made the decision to follow God's leading and move back to our home state of Indiana (from Arizona.)
• We put our house in AZ up for sale (cleaning, packing, showings.)
• My husband began looking/applying for other jobs
• My grandfather was moved into a nursing home and continues to decline in health
• Found out my other grandfather needed open heart surgery, which, praise the Lord went well yesterday
• We were planning my son's 1st birthday parties (yes, two of them)
• Our house sold in one week. Holy cow.
• We traveled to Indiana for 10 days - where my husband got a fantastic job offer, we looked at 11 homes in 2 counties, found a house we loved, put an offer on it and celebrated my son's 1 year birthday with two parties in two days.

Oh did I mention, now that we're back in AZ... we officially move back to IN for good in 10 days. And we're living with my parents, who thought they were going to be empty nesters when my brother went to college... [sorry Mom & Dad] AND... we're closing on our new house middle of September.

I'm sure I'm missing something else, but just writing all of that makes me stressed! Not to mention so many other decisions that have had to be made. And you can't please everyone with all the decisions you make, even though you're trying to do what's best for your family. So there's physical loss of sleep and just exhaustion, mental strain making tons of big decisions and planning ahead, emotional stress of these huge changes in your life... and all I want to do is be STILL.

Every step of this process has been God led. He has put things specifically on our hearts so that we would continue to follow His will. And we've been praying and praising Him every single day. But in the midst of all the decisions and planning and packing... even though we know we're following God's will, He still wants us to be still. He asks us to just take a moment to breathe. To pray. To lean on Him for strength. There have been plenty of times just in the last week that I've cried aloud, "The joy of the Lord is my strength!" and "Jesus give me strength!" because I know that it can only come from Him. But he also wants us to just stop and rest. To be still and know that He is God. To revel in His glory and His grace. To breathe in His spirit and know that only HE can rejuvenate me!

So whether your last few weeks or today is absolutely crazy or if maybe you just need strength... 

Restless

When I was little and I had trouble sleeping, my mom would always tell me to just start praying for people I knew. So instead of counting sheep, I would pray for my family; from my great grandparents down to the youngest cousin. Then, if I hadn't fallen asleep yet, I would start praying for my friends. My mom's intention was to teach me that when you are restless, go to God. Well lately I've been restless. It's more than likely the 3 hour time difference/jet lag that's still bothering me from my trip to Indiana last week, but when I wake up at 6am or just can't sleep at night, I hear that little voice in my head saying, go to God.

I think God tries to get our attention when He knows it's been a while since our last good conversation. If we haven't taken the time to pray with God or dig into His Word, I think He has His ways of letting us know that He misses us and wants our attention. God also knows when there is unconfessed sin in our lives. His word tells us to confess our sins to Him and to ask forgiveness of our sins. If there is something in our lives that we know is a sin and we are not acknowledging it, He demands a response of confession and change. He may be calling us to pray for someone or some situation specifically. I've woken up in the middle of the night to pray specifically for someone I went to high school with; not knowing their situation, but knowing that God brought that name to mind for me to pray for them.  But whatever it may be, I know there is always peace in coming to Christ.

Matthew 11:28 says, "Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."
Proverbs 14:30 says, "A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones."
James 5:16 says, "Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective."
1 John 1:9 says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."

Are you restless? Waking up in the middle of the night, or early in the morning? Do you hear the still, small, voice of God whispering in your ear? Is He saying that it's been a while since you've prayed to Him? Is He begging you to stop your sinful ways and change your life for Him? Is He sensing your anxieties and wanting to bring you peace? Go to Jesus, all you who are weary, and He will bring you rest.

Psalm 116:7-9