Saturday, July 17, 2010

Morning devotions (and evening meditations)

I know that by starting out with this it will seem that I am always consistent in having my morning devotions. I also realize that I only post ever once in a while so people aren't getting the whole picture. In reality, this is the first morning in a while that I 've gotten up early enough to read and blog before the day starts.
Be that as it may, it was such a blessing (as always) that I wanted to share a bit. I'm reading in Psalms, Ch 25 - 28 today, and I'm so blessed by the constant reminder of the Lord's willingness to hear us and bless us and guide us. The older I get the more I can identify with David, his desire to serve the Lord and have the Lord's leading, his failing, his love for the Lord in spite of inconsistencies, his fears and triumphs. He records the whole scope of human emotion in the Psalms. And it speaks to my heart so much because it echoes my heart cry.
Ps. 28: 6,7
" Blessed be the Lord, because He hath heard the voice of my supplications. The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in Him and I am helped: therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth; and with my song will I praise Him."
The reminder, you know, of how much He does help me and answers my prayers...and also the question...How much have I praised Him publicly for all that He does for me? My children hear my prayers for help....do they also see the evidence of Him working in my life, do they hear the praise for answered prayer?
This is once again my prayer...Instead of voicing my frustrations with some unmet goal, let me praise the Lord for what has been done. My heart has been helped, now let my mouth give testimony to that.
Before I close I have to tell something about last night that is a little testimony ...
We had Julia's 15 th birthday party last night and had a houseful, even Peepaw and Meemaw and Aunt Sha got to come for it. Most of the crowd had left by 9:30, but as usual, we had some guests until after 11 and of course by then my kids are tired and hyper. I had been telling them to clean up and get p.j.s on while I was still chatting, but I hadn't taken any steps to enforce that other than repeating myself. (Probably a mistake, but it is so disruptive to a conversation to run in the other room and spank 6 kids and come back and try to remember what I was saying.=)) Anyway, after I waved the last people off, I went back in and some of them were still running and jumping off the bunkbeds, etc. And there was abundant evidence in the other room that it was not picked up and many things had been played with besides toys. ( This has been a trend lately anyway, any time we have company. Definitely not a first offense, and we have already discussed this many times.) Needless to say, it got to me. So I lined everyone up and "gave them their due". (Trust me, everyone was guilty.) And sent them to bed. I usually follow all this up with a guilt-inducing lecture on "obeying right away, not wrecking the house, yada, yada, yada..." And I was on the verge of doing it again but ( I know it was the Lord) I just felt that little nudge that it wasn't the right thing to do. I had corrected the problem, now move on. Try to restore fellowship instead of letting them go to sleep thinking I'm still mad. So instead, we had prayer together, and after I hugged and kissed each one, instead of a parting reminder, I suggested "Hank the Cowdog". Can you hear the screams of delight? One chapter of that and it was lights out. Of course they begged for more, but it had done it's job. Fellowship restored.
All that to say, the Lord cares about even the little things and I'm so thankful for His guidance and "reminders".
Ok, I gotta scoot. Ya'll have a good day!

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