What a beautiful Sabbath day....and what a great day to be ALIVE!!!! I woke up this morning smiling and singing, and just praising God for how He's been blessing and leading in my life! It's more wonderful than any words could tell or any picture could paint! In fact, while I'm usually not as strict on my wake-up time Sabbath morning (after all, it is a day of REST), today there was no way I could sleep in even a little. I was just so excited to get up and pray, have my time with God, and meet this new day. God is sooooo good and He's been teaching me so much!

For the last several months, while I know God has been growing my heart and building my character, I've struggled feeling like my heart is getting a little "numb" to the plight and pain of the world around me. It's not that I don't know what pain is...I've been through my own share in my life, and I still deal with it every day....with one broken spirit after another in the hospital ward, in the mission stories of those I love, or in watching one sad story of disaster after another on the news. But the problem is, while these situations are "heart-breaking," it seems my heart has gotten a little "crusty and calloused" around the edges...and my heart has not been breaking as it should for the world around me! (I hate to admit this...yet, it is reality!)

However, once we realize our "helplessness and hopelessness" and cry out to God, thankfully He does not leave us there! For several months now, one of my prayer request has been, "God....break my heart with the things that break the heart of Jesus. Soften me, mold me, make me into the person YOU would have me be!" And God is answering my prayer...in a path of pain that I would never have imagined or expected, but in a way that is utterly beautiful and cleansing to my soul! And I just have to smile as I say again, God is soooo good!

Let me share a few words from some inspirational reading I had this morning, and it will more clearly portray some of the amazing lessons God is teaching me.

"I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord." Phil 3:8

"This is the happy season of ripening cornfields, of the merry song of the reapers, of the secured and garnered grain. But let me hearken to the sermon of the field. This is its solemn word to me. You must die in order to live. You must refuse to consult your own ease and well being. You must be crucified (there's a reason Mel, for every cross I give you), you must be crucified not only in desires and habits which are sinful, but in many more which appear innocent and right.

If you would save others, you cannot save yourself. If you would bear much fruit, you must be buried in darkness and solitude. His Calvary (referring to Jesus) blossomed into fertility, and so shall yours. Plenty out of pain, life out of death. Is not this the law of the kingdom?"

"And the Lord said, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat; but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not." Luke 22:31-32

Isn't it ironic that in God's kingdom, so many things are like backwards from what the world sees as good? If we want to live, we must first die. If we would be elevated in God's eyes, we must be humbled, if we would abound we must first be abased, if we would truly receive we must first truly give. And most of all, if God would make something of us, we must first become nothing...for only from nothing can God create something. (See Gen 1 & 2!)

Yes, by sharp and sometimes drastic measures, God is working in each of our lives and hearts, preparing us for the Kingdom to come! And while I don't always understand His ways or His workings, and......I have to admit, I still don't like pain.....I'm learning that it is for my good, and I can rejoice.

"The fact that we are called upon to endure trial shows that the Lord Jesus sees in us something precious which He desires to develop. If He saw in us nothing whereby He might glorify His name, He would not spend time in refining us. He does not cast worthless stones into His furnace. It is only valueable ore that He refines! He has a song to teach us, and when we have learned it amidst the shadows of affliction, we can sing it ever afterward." Ministry of Healing 471,472