Slow to learn
Number of days we have lost with our daughter due to the negligence of the state of Illinois: 31
That slow learner would be me. Sometimes I have to be hit over the head multiple times before something really sinks in. Over the past few months I have been confronted over and over with the idea that God wants good things for us. First it was when we studied Luke 18: 1- 8 in the girls' Bible study that I lead. The second time it was the sermon on Luke 11. The main lesson in both of these passages is the same... God is the perfect parent and He loves us and desires good things for his children.
I have been finding it difficult to keep this in mind with the wait to bring our daughter home. (Well, that among other things. Property taxes were due around her a week or so ago. That always stretches my faith... and indebtedness.) Anyway it just all seemed to fall at the same time and life felt precarious and when life feels precarious it is a very easy jump to becoming a puddle of self-pity and feeling more than a bit as though surely God must have forgotten me. Because if He loved me as much as He says He does, my life would be perfect and happy all the time, right? It is so easy to slip into this way of thinking even with the contrary evidence right in front of my noes... or at least screaming in my ear. God is my parent, I am His child. Do my children feel their lives are perfect and happy all the time? Um, that would be a resounding no.
Yet, because I am slow to learn, there I was feeling quite sorry for poor little old me. I grudgingly picked-up my Bible because I knew I had to prepare for that week's Bible study. In a further attempt at avoidance, I decided to first sort through all the papers which get tucked in it. The first one I look at, which I have absolutely no idea where it came or recollection of putting it there (it's not in my handwriting) has this written on it, "Romans 8: 31-35; 38-39". Curious now because I don't know where this note came from, I looked up the reference.
"What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died - more than that, who was raised - who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine or nakedness, or danger, or sword?"
" For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." (ESV)
The same message... for a third time. Maybe I should pay attention.
That slow learner would be me. Sometimes I have to be hit over the head multiple times before something really sinks in. Over the past few months I have been confronted over and over with the idea that God wants good things for us. First it was when we studied Luke 18: 1- 8 in the girls' Bible study that I lead. The second time it was the sermon on Luke 11. The main lesson in both of these passages is the same... God is the perfect parent and He loves us and desires good things for his children.
I have been finding it difficult to keep this in mind with the wait to bring our daughter home. (Well, that among other things. Property taxes were due around her a week or so ago. That always stretches my faith... and indebtedness.) Anyway it just all seemed to fall at the same time and life felt precarious and when life feels precarious it is a very easy jump to becoming a puddle of self-pity and feeling more than a bit as though surely God must have forgotten me. Because if He loved me as much as He says He does, my life would be perfect and happy all the time, right? It is so easy to slip into this way of thinking even with the contrary evidence right in front of my noes... or at least screaming in my ear. God is my parent, I am His child. Do my children feel their lives are perfect and happy all the time? Um, that would be a resounding no.
Yet, because I am slow to learn, there I was feeling quite sorry for poor little old me. I grudgingly picked-up my Bible because I knew I had to prepare for that week's Bible study. In a further attempt at avoidance, I decided to first sort through all the papers which get tucked in it. The first one I look at, which I have absolutely no idea where it came or recollection of putting it there (it's not in my handwriting) has this written on it, "Romans 8: 31-35; 38-39". Curious now because I don't know where this note came from, I looked up the reference.
"What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died - more than that, who was raised - who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine or nakedness, or danger, or sword?"
" For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." (ESV)
The same message... for a third time. Maybe I should pay attention.
Comments
I too can feel low, down, why is this happening... Different trials, similar feelings. Then really listening and taking in God's Grace and Love for me... It truly fills me up.
Also, I too would get distracted (Procrastinating) from doing what I set out to so and start filing thing, (like you did with organizing your Bible notes). Thank you for sharing, it actually helped me stay on track better with God's plans for me today,
I wonder where the message originally came from.
Elizabeth L.