My biggest struggle and my souls pain

Just before writing the bulletin cover (which I blogged below) called A gift from the creator of the universe.
I was struggling with hope. I never really recognised the true issue before...in waves I get dismayed and am pulled down...on the surface I could tell you that I wanted a baby, wanted to be married, was tired of waiting, tired of life going by, tired of living at home, my sisters were buggin me, life was buggin me, feeling alone and worthless, struggling with my concept of me and in general feeling like crap...

But I have come to realise that what I am really struggling with in these times is hope.
A few weeks ago after sitting in my self righteous crap for a few weeks I was starting to take out how I was feeling on other people and was in general pushing people away. One of my new pastors had mentioned in a sermon that she made scripture cards and when whatever the issue is comes up she pulls out her card and to quote her ’kicks devil butt.’ I had heard of a few people making lists of scriptures on cards to pull out and so decided to give it a go. In my head I was thinking well the least it can do is get me into the Word so it wont be all a waste of time.
So I sat at the kitchen table with some cards, my NKJV and a concordance. Not knowing what I was going to look up or how long it was going to take.

Looking back through the cards there are several main themes that run through them. They are, hope, trust, strength, God, doing God stuff and focus (on God). The time spent reading and writing out the verses was so powerful and God ministered to my heart and brought about a measure of healing (I just counted and I have 59 cards). I was struck though by how many times hope and trust kept coming up in what I was reading.

Now to add some context to this blog...God and I weren't on specking terms cos He kept saying these three words to me and I didn't like it so I stopped listening and got angry. He was saying to me ’In My time.’ Well that’s all well and good but His time and my time seemed to be different and I right royally spat my dummy.

Anyways after my measure of healing from writing out my cards I went to ignite (the Saturday night session) and then to church on Sunday and the sermons were on similar topics...yep you guessed it trusting in the Lord and hoping in His plan with special reference in both to delighting in the Lord.

Delighting in the Lord was not a new concept to me but it felt like it. The main verses used were psalm 37: 3-4 ’trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.’ It seems so simple...delight in the Lord...and He shall give you the desires of your heart...not delight in the Lord...keep worrying, planning, doing, fretting...and maybe you will get a measure of what your looking for cos you worked at it enough...NO!!! All we need to do is to delight in Him and God does the rest...now this may seem trivial but it was huge to me...

A weight was lifted and I have been simply delighting in the Lord...I accept that He will bring things to be in His time...here’s the best bit...in delighting in the Lord, in trusting him and simply enjoying Him, my hope is constantly renewed and I am not weighed down by longing...
Proverbs speaks of deferred hope making the heart sick. And I think this is so...hope draws our focus to the future and gives us a will to go on...loss of hope creates darkness and despair.

And so to end this rather long blog I will share some of my favourite verses with you from my cards...im only going to put the references up...cos if it truly matters to you to look up the verses on hope, trust etc you will do it...if not keep them in mind for later down the road and remember hope is one of the most important things you can possess and just delight in God...it will bring you joy...
Proverbs 13:12
Proverbs 17:22
Psalms 31:24
Hebrews 10:23
Psalms 31:15a
Psalms 37:3-4
Isaiah 43:1-7 (my verses from God)
Psalm 130:1-6
Psalm 119:114
Micah 6:8
Proverbs 3:5-6