A Mom's Best Friend

I will proclaim the name of the Lord. Oh, praise the greatness of our God! 

                                                                                               Deut 32:3

A dog may be a man's best friend, but the Holy Spirit is a mom's best friend.

Something told me last night to put my phone next to my bed and leave the ringer on. This is something I almost never do because one of my friends is a midnight texter.

So I was almost not surprised when I got a call this morning at 2:45. It was from a strange number and when I saw it, I almost put my phone on silent, but instead, I took the call. It's a good thing I did because it was the police, and they had my 16-year old daughter, Dania.

The officer explained that the car she was riding in had a broken tail light so he pulled it over. Once he got near the car he smelled pot and alcohol. He assured me that she wasn't hurt or impaired and wasn't being charged with anything. But he wanted to know if we wanted to come and get her.

        Oh, yes. We did!

My husband was halfway out the door before I finished the call. She'd gone to see Iron Man 3 with a friend and apparently got caught up in a situation she couldn't easily get out of.

It's a good thing the Lord sent a rescue for her.

Now, we're going to be having a talk later today and there will be some difficult discussions, but right now, I'm still praising the greatness of our God.

Has He blessed you with any rescues lately?

Stuck

Here's why I've been gone so long...

   Erika got stuck!

Big time. Only, I didn't really realize it'd happened, until it came up in conversation with my friend, Terri. I told her I'd been feeling jealous of another friend who was talking about her journaling.

Ordinarily, something like that wouldn't cause feelings of jealousy for me. Or, I'd guess a better description of what I felt was longing. I longed to write out my feelings. Except I couldn't write.

     And I couldn't truly admit how I felt.

          And I couldn't sing.

And if I can't sing... I'm stuck.

I'm not kidding, I wake up singing (in my head because that would be too annoying to everyone else). Even in the middle of the night if I get up to go to the bathroom or get a drink of water, I wake up with a song.

But alas, my song was gone.

I'm happy to say it's back.  How did I get unstuck again, you might ask?

I asked God to help me figure it out, and after praying, I realized I hadn't acknowledged a hurt. That's a story for another post, but what I thought was a "small" hurt, was really a gaping wound. The enemy just got his dirty self in there and turned it into an infection.

       But, praise God when I asked... He came to my rescue.

Do you have an unacknowledged wound? Try asking God to help you dig down deep and begin the healing only he can do.

Praise the LORD, all you nations;

   extol him, all you peoples.

For great is his love toward us,

   and the faithfulness of the LORD endures forever.

Praise the LORD.

                                     Psalm 117

Good Morning

This morning, I woke up in a funk. For some people that's normal, but I'm a morning person. If I could create a pictorial of how happy I am when I wake up (wait...I just did) it would like like this:

You get the picture. It's why I get up so early - to be alone with my happy self. No one else in my family's like that so it just annoys everyone and then they annoy me with their grumpy selves.

But not today. I was not feeling it today and so I prayed to God and tried self-analysis to figure it out. I thought about yesterday and then remembered... Oh yeah, that's right! I got the call I knew would come one day:

"Mom. There's been a slight problem and the police want to talk with you."

I'll tell you about that tomorrow, but today I want to tell you about the great thing God did for me. He impressed these words onto my mind during prayer:

                Psalm 117

I hadn't read that one before so I looked it up.

Praise the LORD, all you nations;

    extol him, all you peoples.

For great is his love toward us,

    and the faithfulness of the LORD endures forever.

Praise the LORD.

He always knows just how to cheer me up!

Blessed, Blessed, Blessed!

Yesterday morning I was leaving the downtown public library with my arms full of books. An older woman was walking toward the entrance and when she got about six feet away she said, "Good morning, how are you?"

"I'm fine. How are you?"

"I'm blessed child. Blessed, blessed, blessed. God is good!"

This was one of those walking conversations, where words flew quickly as our bodies glided by one another. I was surprised by her early morning exuberance with me, a total stranger, but I did manage to shout out, "That's wonderful!" before she got through the doors.

It was wonderful and still makes me smile.

...And daily He shall be praised.  Psalm 72:15