This song has been stuck re-echoing through my head the past several days, ever since I heard Brandon & Maverick City Music perform it live last Saturday at Life Surge (a "pep rally for Christians" as my mom termed it :)).
To be honest, it's been a challenging month for me.
In my previous post, I talked about the positive anniversary of Jan. 25th, 2011. What I left out mentioning was the negative 4th anniversary of Jan. 24, 2018 the day before. Between that date of my mental breakdown and my departure from Uganda on April 4, I was ..... in limbo I guess. I rarely consciously choose to think about those weeks, because they are still painful memories. But this post is not about that.
As I was saying, it's been a challenging month.
BUT GOD.
He continues to work, even in the midst of my brokenness, weakness, and failings.
And this song has been calling me to shift my perspective from everything that is wrong to the MANY things I can praise God for.
"So I'll throw up my hands and praise You again and again."
Here's the beginnings of a list ... because I need to reinstitute this practice in my life!
- Father God's constant love and grace toward me.
- Our Savior's faithfulness, that He is gentle and lowly and understands us in our weakness from His 33-ish years of experience with temptation.
- Paraclete, using Scripture passages and songs like this to woo back my heart.
- Tom's excellent sermon on Sunday at CBC, talking about how the indwelling of Paraclete is the guarantee of our inheritance, the assurance of our salvation.
- Life Surge was a really neat event - I had the opportunity to hear Nick Vujicic, Willie Robertson, Priscilla Shirer and other speakers in person. I am definitely glad I went!
- I'm *immensely* grateful for my friends, my coworkers, my mentors, my counselor, my doctor, etc! They both support me in spite of my shortcomings, but also call me not to stay in that place. They shoot straight, not coddling me when what I need is a wakeup call.
- This week, two negative things happened to my car, and my "Dallas grandpa" had to do a repair of an older fender bender in order for my car to hopefully pass inspection. But I'm grateful to one of the deacons from my church for helping me replace a flat tire Monday night, and to the said adoptive grandpa for working on my car for me yesterday.
- On the same note, I'm thankful that the lady whose car I slid into this morning on the way to work is fine and that her car is too. Praying that once she sees that, she won't file anything with my insurance!
- I appreciate the book we've been reading for our CBC Young Adults' Group, Gentle and Lowly which I "just happened" to read this morning before heading to work - and which is helping inform the second bullet point.
- I'm grateful for my newest coworker, who is also a huge encourager and a great hugger!
- Praising God for good sleep recently, that is certainly a blessing!!
- As much as I gripe about my weight loss program internally, I'm thankful for the progress being made in that area.
- That even when we are under spiritual attack, we can fight from a place of victory ALREADY won!!
- For a fun time talking with my "sister" Sarah about her well-written book that she is sharing with me.
