This morning I woke up with the same horrendous dream I have over and over and over again. The one where my children are being molested. I am so tired of this dream but you know what? This dream may wake me up, this dream does cause sorrow and pain and worry and regret, but it also brings me to the Lord in prayer. I like this place, the time when I am in my room and in tears, in a complete mess, because I am comforted and strengthened and I know that I am with the one person who can heal and who can crush our enemies.
I love this time because it may start off with me fearful and in a mess but I tell these fears to God, and I known I'm heard. And then I can go to commonprayer.org and I can continue with prayers that are more organized and will cover the gauntlet of prayers that I would like to pray. Prayers for the leaders in this world, prayers for the ministers, prayers for the hurting and above all prayers that praise God, and scripture, I get to learn more scripture each and everyday while praying.
Today I did something different. I started to read Facebook and pray for the people I saw that needed prayer including the organizations, like Samaritan's Purse, Compassion, Liz Higgins.
Speaking of Liz Higgins. She has been posting 50 Proverbs that she loves. Todays was this:
"Stop measuring a productive day by what you have accomplished, and celebrate what God has accomplished in and through you."
Proverbs 16:13 is what it is based on. Commit to the Lord whatever you do and He will establish your plans. This brought tears to my eyes immediately. I've been so focused on what I'm not getting done and instead, with her words, I thought of what God has done thru me. Just yesterday I saw a lady at work who looked so small and so lost. I didn't stop at her desk but went to mine and sent her an instant message just to say hi. What she said to me warmed my heart. Sometimes all we need is a hello so that we know we aren't alone. It wasn't me who did that, or who knew to do that, that was a God thing. That was all God. And He let me do that. He let me feel the warmth and He let her know she wasn't alone and lost.
Then, I stumbled across My Utmost for His Highest, devotionals by Oswald Chambers. This I'm going to copy and paste here because this is too good to not share:
Security from Yesterday. “…God requires an account of what is past” (Ecclesiastes 3:15). At the end of the year we turn with eagerness to all that God has for the future, and yet anxiety is apt to arise when we remember our yesterdays. Our present enjoyment of God’s grace tends to be lessened by the memory of yesterday’s sins and blunders. But God is the God of our yesterdays, and He allows the memory of them to turn the past into a ministry of spiritual growth for our future. God reminds us of the past to protect us from a very shallow security in the present.
Security for Tomorrow. “…the Lord will go before you….” This is a gracious revelation— that God will send His forces out where we have failed to do so. He will keep watch so that we will not be tripped up again by the same failures, as would undoubtedly happen if He were not our “rear guard.” And God’s hand reaches back to the past, settling all the claims against our conscience.
Security for Today. “You shall not go out with haste….” As we go forth into the coming year, let it not be in the haste of impetuous, forgetful delight, nor with the quickness of impulsive thoughtlessness. But let us go out with the patient power of knowing that the God of Israel will go before us. Our yesterdays hold broken and irreversible things for us. It is true that we have lost opportunities that will never return, but God can transform this destructive anxiety into a constructive thoughtfulness for the future. Let the past rest, but let it rest in the sweet embrace of Christ.
Leave the broken, irreversible past in His hands, and step out into the invincible future with Him.
http://utmost.org/yesterday/
You see the dream about my children being molested is a way for all the sins of my past to be brought to me wrapped in a mothers greatest fear. This dream is a mothers worst nightmare coupled with a way to keep me lost in past sins. My children assure me that they weren't molested. They are in their thirties so I don't have to worry about this happening to them now. So when I say that this dream is a way to bring my sins to me, I mean just that. What mother doesn't worry that she let her children down? Or that someone snuck in and hurt her child? Or just that we are a bad mother. So, this reading from Oswald Chambers . . . POWERFUL.
"Our present enjoyment of God’s grace tends to be lessened by the memory of yesterday’s sins and blunders. But God is the God of our yesterdays, and He allows the memory of them to turn the past into a ministry of spiritual growth for our future."
God goes before us and behind us.
I messed up (understatement) by not bringing my children to God while they were young. I messed up by staying wrapped up in my second husband and all that sensuality. I lost that time with my children and I can not redeem this - but God can. He can bring my children to Him. He can open their hearts and their minds and their souls and he can turn their eyes onto Him so that they can experience their joy in Christ. I don't need to wallow in sorrow and guilt and get lost in the past. I can't wallow in it, but I can use that to help others - to help my own children so that they don't lose the time like I did.
God is going behind me to protect me from being lost in all the hurt and pain and sin from my past.
The Lord will go before you.
You shall not go out with haste,…for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard. —Isaiah 52:12
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