A Princess, I am, the daughter of the most high King. Yet there are times when everything seems to turn into pumpkins. Have you ever felt like this?
You pray and study, research and review, then step forward into what you know is God’s will, only to find yourself alone in a pumpkin patch.
Making the right decision does not always come with a happy consequence. Some decisions are assigned by God to divide, at the least for a season, sometimes for a lifetime.
To receive all that the Lord wants to give requires that I open my hand and release all that I am holding on to. Things, or people that I hold as treasures, are really broken and in need of His repair as well. Holding on only insures that no repair will come.
I gave my life to Christ at an early age, though I have not always made the best choices, He has never left me. Sitting beside me on my bed, holding me as sorrow soaks my pillow, and impairs my breathing.
I want to scream. Am I a woman who learns and learns and never comes to understanding?
I read a section from the Lord in Ann Voskamp’s book, One Thousand Gifts.
“ God tries to gently drive the words of Caussade from the knowing of my head to the bleeding of my heart:
You would be very ashamed if you knew what the experiences you call setbacks, upheavals, pointless disturbances, and tedious annoyances really are. You would realize that your complaints about them are nothing more nor less than blasphemies – though that never occurs to you.
Nothing happens to you except by the will of God, and yet [God’s] beloved children curse it because they do not know it for what it is.”
Blasphemy?…Dictionary.com defines blasphemy as, “the crime of assuming to oneself the rights or qualities of God.”
Is that what I’m doing when I complain and think everything has turned into pumpkins? And when I complain that I can’t see, and question God about His Holy location?
Job and his life come galloping to the front of my mind, “Though He slay me, yet I will trust Him” (Job 13:15)– frightening words that cut into the already torn tissues that drive my life.
Yet isn’t that the life we are called to live? A life laid at the cross, dying so that His power can be perfected in us, Not I who lives but Christ in me.
He lives His life with complete abandon to the will of the Father, and we are instruction to be like Him. He never cried out, It isn’t fair, or, Your not making others do all of this! Instead, the Word, that created all things by speaking, gave life and healed, never uttered a word, and obeyed the Father’s will, trusting the promised given.He continued in doing what the Father did, by forgiving and giving while hanging in the place between God and man.
A layer has come off the verse, “Count it all joy” and an deeper meaning is revealed. (James 1:2)
Why is it easier and first reflex to believe the bad about me or anyone, before I believe the good? Believe in the good that is in His image, fashioned in everyone. To trust in the one who created all, and see how He will use all things to His glory. That is a gift. Today, I choose to trust, this is how I receive from God. It is a gift. Today I choose Joy, that too is a gift I receive from God.
I am still a princess of the all mighty King, and what I considered pumpkins are really jewels, given by God, camouflaged by human eyes.
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Diane W. Bailey is the founder of The Consilium – an online community of wisdom and purpose for women over 45 years of age. She is a published author. Her books include String of Pearls – From Tears to Treasure, and 30 Days To A Better Stepfamily.
She creates her own line of precious metals bracelets.
Diane lives in the Deep South with her husband Doc. Together they have created a stepfamily, each having two stepchildren and two birth children, and share three grandchildren, one black lab named Charlie and one long haired tabby cat named Lil Girl.
Diane’s passion is to encourage women to be all God has created them to be by pressing past fear and daring to live life as an adventure. Some of her life adventures include traveling to Israel, speaking, entrepreneurship and backyard farming with Doc. She loves Gumbo, fried shrimp and seeing all sunsets across water.
Latest posts by Diane W. Bailey (see all)
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Diane, thanks for reminding me that complaints are offenses and that what I see is not the full reality of what I have in Christ. I too, am a princess and am learning each day to stand up in that name. Thank you for the beautiful post!
Well said! This year, I have found that things that looked like "pumpkins" to me were really the instruments that He was using to align me right where I needed to be inside of He perfect plan. Trusting that He knows me better than I know myself and has good plans for my life has to be the place that I continue to wrestle my heart into so that I walk in joy in every season. But that makes the future so inviting!Good words, friend!