Hopeless? I don't think so...

Our Daily Bread
Hopeless?  Downhearted?  Sad?  I learned something important this week. I guess you can teach an old bear new tricks!  hehehe  I am a little embarrassed to write this because most of you may have known this for many years!  Here it goes...

I think human nature (and my nature) is to focus on the one or two things in your life that aren't going the way you want causing you to feel depressed or hopeless or sad.  This week I learned to accept the things that aren't going the way I want and then focus on the blessings in my life that could not be replaced.  So what that a romantic relationship doesn't go the way you want?  I had a friend text me last night with one of the coolest messages I could ever get from a close friend.  Those kinds of blessings FAR outweigh some minor bumps in the road like not dating the person you want to be with.

Like the devotional says, God can and will provide for our needs beyond our wildest dreams if we trust him and have faith.  An example is another close friend that I love dearly.  His first LTR (long term relationship) did not work out.  He got frustrated that he didn't meet someone for a few years.  After meeting his current partner and falling in love, he said he could not even imagine something better.  Wow!  I want that too!

So what are you hopeless, downhearted or sad about now?  Romance?  Job or lack of job? Living situation?  Whatever it is.  Count your blessings.  Be grateful for them.  Trust God for hope.  Trust God to know your needs.  Trust God and DON'T try to make things happen on your own (that is what I do!).

Lord, thank you so much for the many blessings I have in my life and for a heart that can hold love.  I will trust you and not focus on the things I don't have.

Simply Saturday
My left eye is doing better today.  I think the changes are so small that it is hard for me to tell.  I felt a lot of itching yesterday as it was healing more and more.  The stitches felt like eye lashes in my eye and I couldn't take them out!  That is a very good sign.  I will rest this weekend.  I will take it easy.

Life is so funny.  I feel like a loaf of leavened bread sometimes.  hehehe  There is an analogy for you!  I don't know where that came from!  God has been kneading me and kneading me (and we all know I am needy at times... pun intended...) to thoroughly mix all the things together he has been teaching me.  In my analogy, the yeast is the Holy Spirit.  God is putting the Spirit in my life more and more each day so it can grow depth in my personality and help me "rise" above the things that constrain me -- much like bread can rise above the constraints of the bread pan before baking.  What is the end product?  I know I will be a new creation some day in heaven.  What will the end product be on earth?  I will return to an analogy I feel more comfortable with -- I don't know where the road is leading me.  No frickin' clue.  What does it matter as long as God is leading?

So am I just supposed to lay around in a warm place with a kitchen towel draped over me until I finish rising? That is how my Grandmother used to make bread!  Yes and no.  In my bread analogy, the "warm place" is a church where I can feel a part and be nurtured.  The kitchen towel is the word of God as it covers me in knowledge and protects my mind from other forces in the world.  It protects my mind by giving me pure things to think about instead of the crap the world is throwing at us every second.

What happens next?  The bread is put into the oven and baked for the appropriate amount of time.  All the work, all the protection, all the chemical reactions of the yeast result in a fully baked load of bread that is pleasing to the eye.  Have you ever had a half baked loaf of bread?  EEEWwwwwwww! hehehe

After baking, the last important thing happens for my loaf of life bread (oh, I like that term "life bread").  hehehe  I offer that loaf of life bread to God as a sacrifice just as Christ offered his life bread to his heavenly father thousands of years ago.  God, please take my body, my life, the one you have been working on and use it to your glory.

As my minsters say at the end of their sermons "may it be so".

Hang in there, my friends.  I will be upbeat and steady.  That is what I do...