God is Our Keeper

Simply stated, God is sovereign over all, and God is pure goodness. Knowing this, many believers struggle to understand why painful things happen in their lives and in the lives of their friends or family. They can't help but wonder why God wouldn't stop them from experiencing all this pain and heartache.

That question deepens when we read passages in the Bible like Psalm 121:7-8 that says: "The Lord will protect you from all evil; He will keep your soul. The Lord will guard your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forever." Many people have taken this to mean that the Lord will keep bad things from happening to them. But what the words actually say is that He will keep their souls. And that is altogether different.

The Lord in His wisdom allows pain in our lives, emotional, psychological, and physical. And as hard as it is to believe, sometimes He even orchestrates the difficulty from beginning to end. God understands hurt and He hurts with us, but He also looks into the deeper meaning of our situations. Trials are most often meant to strengthen our faith and make us more like Jesus. Hurts give us compassion for others. At times, God may even use trials and difficulties to prevent us from living mundane, meaningless lives or wasting opportunities that are there for the taking. And sometimes, as hard as it may be for us to understand, with His help, we profit immensely more by walking through the hurt, than by avoiding it completely. The thing we must remember is that there is always value in suffering. When our heavenly Father knows it is best, He doesn't keep us from the pain; instead, He enables us to endure the hardship by giving us wisdom and strength. And, often when we get to the other side, we can see ... with great relief and gratitude ... how His gentle and gracious hand guided us through the entire situation. It was a chance for God to deal directly in our lives with issues that, had they not arisen, we would have missed His help or His hand altogether.

But we must never fear because we have such tremendous hope. And our hope isn't the world's type of hope. Our hope is the assured expectation. It's a sure thing; a done deal. And we can rest assured, knowing that God will keep us through our most difficult times. Especially during those times when we experience our worst and feel utterly alone. Read Psalm 124 and ask God to remind you of its truths when you are in the midst of painful situations in your life.

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My ankle and toes are a nice bright shade of purple today. They've gone through the deep blue, almost black phase. It still pops every time I step on it but it mostly doesn't hurt. It's a little achy this morning but I think that's because Pepper jumped up and landed on my foot right at the injury site. Bright white flash of pain and it has ached since. I went ahead and wrapped it with an elastic bandage and we'll see how that goes for awhile. My toes look so funny all blue and purple especially between my toes. It looks like I stepped in something and it squished up between my toes. Eww! [So you don't have to search back, if you don't know, I severely sprained my ankle last Thursday night. I got up off the couch and my right foot was asleep and I just ended up sprawled all over the floor with my ankle going the wrong direction. Boo!]

I wasn't feeling well yesterday (that's why I didn't blog) but I'm feeling okay now. I had stomach cramps, headache, and a little nausea. I think it may have been a slight kidney infection because my urine was dark brown. I've had that happen before only I don't remember feeling so crummy. Oh well, that's behind me now.

Stacy and Dad got a car!! Yea for them. That's a lot better than walking everywhere they want to go. I don't know if Dan got his motorcycle back yet from the man who stole it. Hopefully he got it back okay without any problems. He could still use it sometimes or he could turn around and sell it now that they have a car. Either way it's still his motorcycle. Steven has been working at the orphanage mostly since he got there. I don't know how they fit 13 people in that tiny house they have. But they are doing it. This will likely be Steven's longest three months or his shortest, one way or the other but I don't think they'll go by normally for him.

We have Leo coming for dinner again Saturday night. I told him I'd pick him up about 5:00 and we'd come back here and sit and visit while he drinks a soft drink. Then we'll have dinner and dessert and then I'll take him back home. Michael picked up some fresh bacon so I can make real bacon bits for Leo's salad. And he bought Peach pie and whipped cream for dessert. We really enjoy doing this for him every once in awhile. It gives him something to plan for his weekend. He lives in a care facility just down the road a little bit. He has an afternoon job at the small grocery store, doing janitorial type things Monday - Friday. And this just gives him an extra something to plan for.

Franci is back to blogging. She had computer problems of some kind and that's why she just suddenly quit blogging. I was so worried. The thing is I knew it could be computer problems but I chose to worry. What does that have to say about me? Am I trusting the Lord in every thing?

I potted more portulaca in my planters to replace all the pansies that died off. It is so pretty the way you can get so many different colors of flowers off the same plant. I don't know how that works but I'm here to say it works. One of them has white, yellow, and red orange blossoms on it. Only one of the new plants is currently blooming. It will take them a week or so for the buds to open up.

It has been hot here the past week and thank God for the cooler. However I have to sit right in front of it to blog so I wear my hubby's hoodie to stay comfortable. But we'd die without the cooler. I'm so glad we put new pads in it this year. It doesn't smell like a fish tank now. Speaking of things not smelling, I bought a new filter for my vacuum cleaner and it smells soooo much better now. It used to smell really gross. Tomorrow I will vacuum the house really well in preparation for Leo and then I'll do it again on Saturday. We have so many animals dropping hair everywhere they go that it takes a lot of vacuuming to get the job done right.

I did make it out to church on Sunday, limping all the way. And I had a meeting Tuesday morning with commission one deacons to go over what needs to be done with the membership roles. But then I had an Executive Board meeting last night and I decided to stay home. I could have gone but I would have had to wash my hair (after lying around on it for 2 days) and change my clothes and I just decided that it would be best if I missed this one. Now I have a case of the guilts and I can't help but wonder what I missed.

I have started my study in Romans and I'm using Warren Wiersby's book Be Right. And I'm enjoying it so far. I will study on Tuesdays and Thursdays if I'm up to it. Like this is Thursday and it's already 2:00 and I haven't done a thing with it. Guess I should wind this up and get busy with it. If I don't keep myself on some kind of schedule I'll end up starting something and not finishing it (something for which I am notorious!). I don't want to start off making excuses for not doing my study.

This hasn't been much of a blog. I don't have a lot to write about because I've been laid up with my ankle for the past week and then had two days of flu-like symptoms so I haven't gone much anywhere or done much of anything. I did go to that meeting on Tuesday even though I wasn't feeling well at the time and when I left there I went to the nursery next door and bought more portulaca, that I mentioned earlier, and went to the post office. But that's the extent of what I've done all week. Anyway, I'm going to go do my study now so I'll probably blog again tomorrow and I'll try to have more to write about. [ON EDIT: I did go into the bedroom where is was quiet and did my study. My lessons take just about an hour.]