bsmiles and sunny days

  FOR THE JOY CHAPTER God Sees Me What is man that you remember him or the son of man that you care for him? Heb 2:6 Psalms 8:3 When I observe your heavens the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you set in place, what is a human being that you remember him as son of man that you look after him? These verse spark wonder in me. I stumble across them and read them again and again. I can’t get my head around this truth. God sees me. What is man that You remember him? Why do You care so deeply and richly for us when humanity is such a lost cause… We fail. We fail. We fail. We fail. When we return to You, You love us. You see us. You pursue us. You hold us, our lives, our tiny details, in Your perfect hands. You are mindful of us. Beautiful God, I am humbled and overwhelmed by Your boundless love. I lose things. A whisk. A can opener. A bag of dried cranberries. I hunt and cry and yell and blame the kids. I get so angry I feel like I might explode. Then I pray

  FOR THE JOY CHAPTER 5 Anchor This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil. Heb. 6:19 In the fall of 2018, my daughter made the shocking announcement that she had enlisted in the Marines. She was over the moon. We were shellshocked. She had committed herself to this incredible path for her life, and I was happy for her. But the marines? I couldn’t imagine my girl fighting alongside a band of the roughest, toughest people she would ever encounter. When her lease ended, she and her dogs moved out of their apartment and back into our house. For the next few months, she worked full-time, exercised endlessly, and set her sights on shipping out to boot camp in the spring. I knew God’s plans would prevail, but I was more than a little nervous about sending my 20-year-old daughter across the country and releasing her to the drill sergeants. I tried to change her mind. Marines were trained like modern day Spartans.

  FOR THE JOY CHAPTER 4 Hold Fast He was faithful to Him who appointed Him, as Moses also was in all His house… for every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God… but Christ was faithful as a son over His house—whose house we are, if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end. Heb. 3:2 Merciful God… At this moment one of my people is wayward like the prodigal. The demand for freedom was beginning to cause a break in our relationship, so we gave it. Now this one is gone. In the big world. All. A. lone. Deep inside me there is a disturbance. My child, the one I was assigned to care for, has left the umbrella of my protection. The ache in my heart, the knot in my guts, the spontaneous tears all caught like a hook in the stream of a wayward heart. I could go and search. I could force the lost one to come home. I could monitor all coming and going. Take the phone and car keys… For what? The wayward path has been chosen. I wou

  FOR THE JOY   CHAPTER 3 Suffering For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through SUFFERINGS. For both He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one Father for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren; Hebrews 2:10 A few years ago on Christmas day, after the morning’s excitement, we packed our bags and headed to Nana’s to continue the festivities. Before leaving town, we stopped at QT for gas and coffee. It was busier than I expected for Christmas day. Bopping cheerfully into QT with a from people from my entourage, I noticed a woman that I knew. I kind of knew her, we had mutual Facebook friends from church but had never met in person. She and her daughter were joyfully giggling by the coffee counter on Christmas day. I felt compelled to introduce myself. “Are you Stephanie?” I asked, cutting into her path to the register.