Another Early Morning

I awoke early this morning experiencing a moment of anxiety with regards to my middle daughter who is away on a mission experience and soon to travel home. These moments bring me out of a deep sleep and I am startled as I come to my senses. I immediately felt the need to get up and spend some time in prayer.

I wish I could say that these early morning events were precipitated by a deep passion to draw closer to my God, and sometimes they really are, but other times they are mostly an awareness of my great need for him to continue to do his work in me, and for his strength to carry me through some difficult and anxious times.

It seems the closer I walk with him, the more he reveals to me what I still need to surrender to him. And it is this tremendous need that keeps the pursuit of him, alive and fervent.

As I began to walk downstairs, I suddenly stopped at the top step because I thought I heard a noise from the living room. Within moments I sensed fear and didn't continue down. I stood there in the pitch black and imagined someone in the house. Now, just so you understand where all of this fear comes from, it is indeed somewhat legitimate. Paul and I have had in the past few years since we have lived here, "unannounced guests" who have made their way either up to our attic or to catch a snooze on our livingroom couch.( This has something to do with friends of our son.) So I was unsure for the moment whether to continue down the steps or go back to my warm bed.

Well, I headed back to my warm bed, snuggled under the arms of my husband and sheepishly told him I thought I heard something and became fearful and couldn't go downstairs. Then I said to him that my "good" intentions were short lived and I succumbed to a silly notion of fear. Feeling somewhat humiliated, I asked him if God was disappointed in me for my lack of discipline and he wisely said, "Robyn, that is not the kind of God you serve, nor the kind of God who loves you."

I laid there in that warm, safe place with him, and began to pour my heart out to my God. Within seconds tears were streaming down my face as I experienced once again, God's amazing love for me. I acknowledged his love for me by repeating over and over "I receive your love for me, I receive your love for me, oh Lord".

As his love entered my heart, my fear and sense of inadequacy disappeared and I threw back the covers and headed downstairs to spend some quiet time with Him. I made myself some coffee, grabbed my laptop, turned on the propane fireplace and snuggled up with a blanket in the corner chair. His perfect love had cast out fear.

If I have discovered any secret at all to living my Christian life, it is that God's love, when appropriated and received deep down in my heart, fully believing he loves me, changes and transforms me. Nothing else has had such dramatic results for me.

A pastor friend of mine has often said, "you cannot grow until you know how much God loves you." So I am becoming more and more aware of his limitless compassion for me and it is indeed changing me.