The first Step Towards God

My church was having a women's retreat about 4 weeks after Jack had died.  It was on fear (I know... how perfect, right?).  I wasn't planning on going, but one day the man who did finances for my church was mowing my lawn with his son (okay... pause there... let's talk about how awesome our church was.  I couldn't have cared less about my lawn, but here was this man taking care of us in ways we never would have thought to ask and he was showing his son to do the same.  Amazing.) and he asked me if I was going.  Umm... no.  He gently encouraged me to go squashing all of my excuses.  No money... here's a scholarship, sign up is over... he could get me in, I couldn't leave my husband... they would hang out with him.  Okay, I guess I'm going.  I thank God he did that.  I mean, come on, fear... really... I definitely needed to hear on that subject.  I was so blessed by that retreat and I won't forget how it ministered to my heart at just the right time.  I could have stayed home and no one would have blamed me, but God had something to say to me and I needed to be away in the mountains to hear from Him.  I needed to be available and fully present.  After that very first talk I grabbed the notes from the speaker and I began to write.  I couldn't stop and I wouldn't stop for about 6 months.  Here's my first entry.

4/15/07 

John Piper concerning Romans 8:28: 

"Nothing will ever enter your experience as God’s child that, by God’s sovereign grace, will not turn out to benefit you. You must believe this or you will not thrive, or perhaps even survive as a Christian, in the pressures and temptations of modern life…. God is taking every setback and every discouragement and every pleasure and every pain and striping it of its destructive power and making it work for the enlargement of MY JOY in God."

Mindy Williams: 

"Poor in spirit really does mean that you are poverty stricken, destitute on your own. Dependency can feel like total helplessness and, with respect to your need for God, you are. You are helpless on your own. Weak feels very vulnerable. I am in need of rescue—help me God! If you don’t show up, I’m lost!"

It is ok for me to feel vulnerable, weak, helpless, and on the edge. Without God I will fall victim to what Satan wants—me to be lost. With God I am strong and hopeful. I am not lost. God has found me and I have found Him. He will make me strong, able and stable. 

God would rather die than be without me!! 

Romans 8: 38 

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels or demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, not anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”