The other day I received an email from our neighborhood emails asking if anyone had a bed.  They said it was for a woman friend who needs a bed to lay on beside her husband.

You see, the husband has cancer and is now in hospice and will be coming home to ...well...start the process of truly going home.  He is a believer.  He will have a hospital bed and she wants to be able to be beside him.

I didn't even blink.  I quickly responded saying yes we had a bed (we do have an extra twin that eventually will need to do something with.) And the lady was so thankful and they would come on Friday to pick it up.

Our plan is to bring over Walter's double bed and have a double and a twin in his room.  Perhaps a bunk bed or something.

Well, that was yesterday.  This morning I looked at the size of the double mattress in Carrie's room and thought, "How in the world are we going to move a double bed?"  Our van is too small and the truck is probably too small as well.

I asked God about it.  I knew He had a plan.

Just now I got a call from the friend of the woman saying they were taking a bed from another offer, that it had sheets and mattress cover and a headboard (we didn't have a headboard) and asked if that was okay.  I told her, "Of course!"

She said it was no coincidence that I was brought to her, b/c as I told her before, that I would be a prayer warrior for her.

And so I am amazed- at how God works.
Was He just testing me to see if I would respond to the need?
Was He showing me that I do have a serving heart and when it's time to serve, that He'd show me and not to feel guilty about focusing on my family for a little bit?
Was it just to add a prayer warrior to this journey of death and pain?

I don't know the why...but I know that NOTHING is coincidence with our God.  Nothing.

And He loves us and He wants us to be open to serve Him whenever He calls.

I just hope I have eyes to see next time He calls.

Joy to the World- have we become so comfortable with the words from memory that we forget to really pay close attention to what we are singing?

I love that it says, "Let every heart prepare Him room" and also
"and heaven and nature sing"

Let every heart get ready to accept and fully embrace this Son of God for ALL that He is!  And ALL that He has done and will do!

When I stop to think about this baby, fully GOD coming to earth....leaving His comfortable spot on high to then be born in a smelly barn/cave...and yet amongst the sheep dung and most quiet place He fills the earth with His glory!! 

We are saved, we are saved!  Our Messiah has come!
Oh joy to the world indeed!

"Joy to the world! the Saviour reigns"

"He:
rules the world with truth and grace,
And
makes the nations prove the glories of His righteousness and wonders of His love"

Yikes.  He rules with truth- stand back, we should feel so unworthy and our sins exposed against His truth of Who He is, yet...BECAUSE of WHO He IS, His grace, His unfailing love takes away every mistake we know (and even the ones we don't know about) and covers us with His love to where we are as white and pure as snow.

But if that's not all, because of WHO He is, He also makes the nations prove the glory of who He is and the wonders of His love

That's some heavy lyrics, if I do say so myself.

So Joy to the world, indeed.
Let the Truth, the I AM, reign in our hearts and bring us to our knees when we consider all the majesty, all the awesomeness that our LORD is.

I have been listening to the rough draft version of my song, "You Are Here."  Presently it is being fine tuned for the listening ear by the amazing producer, John Nanni.

This morning I was reading in Job while listening to the song.

You see, the song is about a time in our lives - may it be a long, long season or a short season, when life is...well, tough.  Where happiness is a difficult place to get to and you have to really work hard on embracing the joy.
It makes me think of Job, where God allowed Satan to inflict many sufferings on this man. 

The entire book of Job (42 chapters) is this scene of suffering and pain.  In the first chapter alone he loses his property and children.  One person runs in to tell him the bad news and another runs in interrupting to give more bad news and then another comes in interrupting to give more bad news.  And yet a FOURTH comes in to tell him about a house falling on his children. 

Bam!  Bam!  Bam!  BAM!   All at once.  I can't imagine.

And then God allows boils on his skin.

So after all this Job's three friends come over with their "new age" wisdom and they aren't much help.  They tell Job his suffering is because he has sinned- and if he was innocent these things would not have happened.
Bad things don't happen to good people.  Which was the "wisdom" of that day.
So sorry, but you brought this upon yourself, you bad bad person.
So helpful and so comforting, right?  Geez!

Back and forth the friends speak and Job speaks and near the end God speaks putting Job in his rightful place reminding Job of the majesty of who He is.  Were you there are creation?  Can you tame the Leviathan, the sea serpent?

But at the end of the book, Job is restored.
BUT, here is where it is interesting (thanks for staying with me to this conclusion)

Job 42
verse 10
"And the LORD restored Job's losses when he prayed for his friends.  Indeed the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before."

When was Job restored?
After he prayed for his friends.
The very friends that were quick to tell Job he was such a sinner after he lost everything.

Wow.

By the way, I am absolutely amazed at Job's first response after he lost so much including his children at the very begininng- chapter 1
Do you know what he did?
He tore his robe, shaved his head...but he also
fell to the ground and worshiped!!!

He worshiped the LORD!

"Blessed be the name of the LORD" he says in verse 21.

If this doesn't put us in our place and make us feel like complete whiners, when we look at our own lives at times and think "poor poor pitiful me"...we are really blind.
May we have the ability to keep our focus even when life seems to be at its worst.

And may we have a better support group than Job's depressing, cruel and spiritually incorrect friends.

Fall to winter.

Sometimes we have a string of cold and wet days and man can that hamper your peppy mood!

It's amazing how quickly our mood can change, too, isn't it?  I have found myself very moody the last month or so. 

Maybe it's because we have moved and I just don't feel like I belong yet.  A very lonely feeling.
Maybe it's because my kids are 6 and 8 and I am beginning to feel more like a maid some days than a mom.  Exhausting.
And the "maybe list" goes on and on.

I can point the finger in a lot of possible directions- but truly, it all boils down to my lack of focus on the Lord.  I forget all that He has done for me and all that He has given me.  (And that's exactly what the enemy wants.)

What I did about 4 weeks ago- after God did a spiritual check on my heart and showed me the test results...(yikes!)

I prayed that God would open my eyes and see the wonderful things He has given me.  I asked that He would help me see the nice things others would do for me, even something so small.  A stranger opening a door for me.

And that leads me to this place today, this place of thankfulness and joy-- and I can see His hand working on my heart.

My day started and ended with encouraging friends.
And it was such an awesome day!  And so now at the end of the day, I am thinking to myself:

Even on the days where the cold and wet seem to drown out the sun and drown out the "fun," I need to keep a joyful heart, keep the positive attitude - so that I may be that blessing to someone else.
It is a mentality, to guard my thoughts, my attitude and be aware when it's far from joyful.