We had a blessed time at the Mini-Retreat last night...here is one of the testimonies. I share my need of a Savior. And that need helps me turn to Him so that He can give me assurance for this world and the next.
Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine {as told by Yvette}
Like thick, black, sticky tar, sin oozes around my heart. A friend whom I love and admire surprised me a couple of weeks ago by saying something about feeling jealousy towards me in the “black part of her heart” or words to that effect. I guess I had been ignoring that reality in me too: the black part of my heart. And her saying it gave me the language to describe it again and so doing, to acknowledge it when it manifests itself in my life.
Dinner was over, the kids had run to their room and my husband and I were cleaning up and catching up. I must have said something wonderfully uplifting like, “I really hope those ladies show up at the mini-retreat.” Yup, this is the verbal expression of the inner monologue of a woman planning to stand in front of a group of women and share about “Assurance in Christ.” My husband gently started talking to me about how it wasn’t me women would come for, that my efforts would just drive me crazy, that it was in God’s sovereign hands, and if God wanted a woman to come, she couldn’t help but come! I started to say something like, but you don’t understand, the advertizing, I had to practically beg people to come last time. He said something profound like, if it is just you up there, that’s exactly what God had planned and the message will do its work. I knew it wasn’t about my strength or efforts or abilities. But still…if I didn’t try do it on my own steam, I would have to get all spiritual and hand it over to God and then He would see that I am not very spiritual right now and that I just had it with the kids and I really was mad the special meal I tried to make turned out to be another mediocre meal, and clearly I was very carnal and not able to go with the “let go and let God” idea.
Plus I am often plain intimidated by women. I mean, they are the ones that had new fashionable clothes when I was growing up and that did extra curricula’s and went on annual vacations and had cliques that I never fully felt I belonged to. And so now, here I am, in my kitchen, (well, actually now we are in the baby’s room changing a stinky diaper that was not going to change itself while we had our spiritual discussion) and I am realizing that the best version of myself aches for the salvation of humankind and is longing for renewal and restoration in Jesus for the women that God will draw to the mini-retreat session, myself included.
Perfect submission, perfect delight,
Visions of rapture now burst on my sight;
Angels, descending, bring from above
Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.
Visions of rapture now burst on my sight;
Angels, descending, bring from above
Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.
My best self is up early in the morning “in perfect submission, perfect delight,” trying to pray and study in preparation to challenge and encourage women in their walk with God. But my quiet time solitude gets a visitor as a little boy takes over his daddy’s side of the bed as my husband goes out into the dark early morning to head to work. I give him an extra Bible and journal and set to work again. And ideas come, Scripture speaks, and faith-filled prayers flow. Not quite “visions of rapture,” but definitely “echoes of mercy,” and “whispers of love.” However, this is the best-self version. The thick, black, sticky tar stuff is still oozing. I mean, I just showed you my pride – ha, look at me, up early, doing quiet time, great mom, what a role model – got the kid doing quiet times. He wasn’t. He was drawing pyramids. This quiet time was this morning. The morning of the night of the “I really hope those ladies show up at the mini-retreat” and my husband calling me on my attitude. Good grief. What is God going to do with me?!
Perfect submission, all is at rest,
I in my Savior am happy and blest,
Watching and waiting, looking above,
Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.
I in my Savior am happy and blest,
Watching and waiting, looking above,
Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.
Redemption now. Again. I must submit to Him. Find my rest in Him. Wait on Him. Let His goodness fill me. Remain lost in His love.
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long.
Praising my Savior all the day long.
This is my story. His blessed assurance. That I am a sinner in need of my Savior; needing deliverance, again and again. Sure of my place with Him in paradise; grappling with the sanctification process this side of eternity.
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