I am so incredibly grateful tonight for my church home and for my God. I wonder if I would have come had I known what was going to happen here. I was so scared of everything resembling anything close to love back then. I might have come, but I would not have believed this life would actually happen. I mean people know about my issues, and they love me. We don’t celebrate my sin, but we celebrate the One who saves me from it!
I rested today. I now have one day to do about three days of work, but I have had a sabbath. I feel human again. I spent much of the day sleeping. Then I cuddled up on my bed with my Bible and read Esther. I thought it a perfect ending to a sabbath. Then there was step study, which was equally awesome.
I have been trying to decipher what has changed so much in my journey and how I follow God compared to how I did before I came to Jersey. I think it has been so different because here none of the leadership in my life tries to explain away the hard teachings of Jesus. It is here I came to the realization I cannot serve both Jesus and the American dream. I get to choose Jesus.
I have been thinking of the verse, “Take no thought about tomorrow for each day has enough troubles of its own.” I love that it follows the “seek ye first the kingdom of heaven and its righteousness” verse. God doesn’t promise me that I do not have to worry about tomorrow if I am not putting His kingdom first. I have the privilege of getting to serve the greatest Power there ever has been or ever will be. I get to be a princess in the greatest kingdom to ever exist. It is kind of crazy how long I decided to be a slave to my own sinful desires instead.
A couple days ago on one of my rough days, I went downstairs to get the laundry. I was tired anyway, but I was trying to figure out how I got to where I am. I just leaned against the wall and verbalized something I hadn’t been coherently thinking, “They tricked me.” They were so nice. They were so kind. They were so patient. I supposed it was the very best form of accidental relationship I have ever experienced. Hey, when I told God I had given up and was just going to follow Him and do what He said, I had no idea it meant a life like this! I thought lives like these didn’t exist for people like me.
I came here believing the Bible was full of things we must do. I am privileged to have discovered it is full of things I may do.
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” – Matthew 6:25-34