I don't know quite where to start - other than with the goodness of God's Grace :)
The back story to this post will be on my mental health journey blog, hopefully by mid-March. Then I'll link to it here. But I don't want to wait to celebrate what God is doing in the present.
This morning, I woke up around 4 a.m. and didn't fall back asleep. I was expecting this ... I am sharing a special devotional/spiritual object lesson with my coworkers and I really want it to go well!!!
But as a result, I made a good choice that it has taken me a long time (too long) to make consistently:
I read the next paragraph in Colossians 1. I had started the end of October, and had only done it twice since then. Personal devotions and prayer have been a struggle I have not been winning for many months. I've let other things crowd those two critical things out. On Saturday and yesterday evening I admitted this to one of my best friends and to my counselor ... and both of them are actively encouraging me to make a point of getting back into daily, personal relationship with God!!
This morning in Colossians, the verse that most stood out to me was 1:6b - "Since the day you heard and knew the grace of God in truth." That verse is especially poignant to me on today, January 25th. You see, it was 11 years ago today that Paraclete's light of GRACE broke into the cell of legalism where I had chained my heart. Click the link on "January 25th" above to read more about that :)
So it was very sweet of God to bring me back to just the paragraph that held that fragment of a verse.
I want to believe that God is continually doing a new thing in my life & soul. In some ways, it's been a long three years since I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and there are still things that I need to surrender back to God and trust Him with & leave it there. I hope and choose to trust that this morning is a baby step back in that direction!!!
Also, thanks to all the men who shared in our church service on Sunday at Community Bible Chapel - Paraclete definitely used each of you in working on my heart!!
