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So long 50

It’s been real. I won’t miss you.

I didn’t plan this post. The irony of so many of me ^up there,; here, I’m alone. No facebook. No audience. No group to share with. Just me and my macbook. Fifty-one years ago plus a few hours, my 24 year old mother gave birth to me. I was third in the line up of what would be six children but the first and last daughter. I have to smile to hear her say, as she often did, “She was my hardest.”

Out of necessity I’ve been cleaning off my computer all evening when I happened to see so many of my ‘selfies’ through the year. It’s been the hardest so far, and I’m not at all sad to see it go. The Bible teaches us to have the mind of Christ, to treat others as He would, to give and to love as He does.

There are far too many ‘stories’ I could share from life the last 15 months, but really they don’t matter. God continually shows Himself faithful to me. Through  pain and trials, I am privileged to learn to become more like Christ; He pursues me. He teaches me to trust Him and not to try and understand “why.” Though crushing to my heart, I am thankful He loves me so much as to remove those who would want to hurt me more. His protection, unseen from behind a veil of tears, is humbling. I love to read the reproaches which fall on me were not foreign to the Lord. He was willing to do good even among the selfish, vindictive insults by others around Him. So trials come, and God is faithful.  People hurt and disappoint, yet I trust the Lord’s ways are better than mine. I give because He gave all. I love, because He first loved me.

For all the good the Lord has shown me through each shattered moment these last 365 days, I thank Him.

 He sustains me.

Job 1:21 “The LORD gives, and the LORD takes away. Blessed be the name of the LORD!”