Complete in Thee: Looking Backwards and Ahead

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Looking Backwards and Ahead

Last night and today I have been blessed as I have taken time to reflect on the eighteen years of God's goodness to me! Eighteen years! How can it be? And God has been faithful every step of the way...

This year, especially, I have been able to record many of those instances of His goodness and faithfulness. Last night I took the time to read nearly all my journal entries from February to July, I believe it was, and I was encouraged to read things that the Lord taught me this year, blessings He has bestowed, prayers He has answered, difficult times that He has brought me through, surprises He has set before me! He is so good!

I noticed that last year in my journal I said that I wanted two things for my 17th year:
1) "To go and stay at Hadleys for a little while and help them"
2) "To finish a book and have it at least on the way to publication"

I had to smile at that! The Lord granted the first in early May by working it out for me to go and stay at my dear friends' house for a week and a half-- one of the most wonderful weeks-and-a-half that I have ever had! :-D

The lack of fulfillment of the second is my fault... ;-) I have not finished a book yet, BUT I may have a publisher for The Marquis' Daughter! I have been in contact with a small-scale publisher who is interested in looking into it when I finish it! The Lord is good!

I am feeling like eighteen is a very "big" age. A person is granted a lot more at age 18 and is practically an adult. Not only am I now 18, but I am also nearly done with grade school. More and more, I am thinking about what I want to do with my life, what the Lord would have me to do with it, rather. As a child of God, my heart's desire is, above all, to glorify God and continually be changed into his image. As for specific things to do, I am not so sure. Writing is the one thing I feel like I actually know. Further than that, I have no clue! My heart is to work with some kind of children's ministry. My overactive, imaginative, adventurous mind thinks that it would be awesome to maybe go on a missions trip and help at an orphanage or something in Eastern Europe or someplace! But at the same time, I want to be here and be able to visit the Hadleys again, and just be available for whatever comes my way! I do not want to go to college or get married this year! So you see, I am doing a lot of thinking, but I really don't know what to do. Can you all please continue to pray for me as I seek to know and do God's will in my life?

Meanwhile, here is a quote that I found copied in my journal sometime back that I may have copied here, but it is lost in the jumble of posts over the long months... ;-) This is with thoughts of each day consecrating my life to my Lord:

"One does not surrender a life in an instant-- that which is lifelong can only be surrendered in a lifetime." -Jim Elliot

For fun, here is a picture from my birthday. I am SO grateful to the Lord for blessing me so richly with so many dear friends, and thank you to Megan, the Reynolds, and my own dear family for making my day so special!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...: Happy Birthday, Melanie! I'll pray for you. :); February 4, 2010 at 3:27 PM
Teddy said...: Ditto the happy b-day and the promise to pray! Thank you for sharing Melanie, you've put my eyes on the Lord this afternoon.; February 5, 2010 at 1:42 PM
Melanie said...: Praise the Lord, Teddy! I am glad it was an encouragement to you. :-)

Oh, and as a side note, I've figured out how to get over that hump in chapter 14 of "Airborne" and should be posting it soon!! :-D; February 5, 2010 at 1:53 PM
Amanda said...: I love that picture! :); February 9, 2010 at 2:24 PM

PRAYER REQUESTS

"Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints" (Ephesians 6:18)

PLEASE PRAY...

* That I would draw nearer to God every day and never allow my relationship to become stagnant ritual; particularly that I would grow in the area of submission, patience, 1 Corinthians 13 love, and wholehearted devotion

* That I might have wisdom as I edit "The Marquis' Daughter"; that the Lord would bless and work through it; and that I might find just the right publisher for it.

* That I would submit to the Lord's work in my life, whatever it may be; that I would take each opportunity He brings me (even the seemingly hard ones) to draw closer to Him and point others to Him

*That our Etsy shop might be successful and that it would be a means by which we can glorify God and share the Gospel

Ephesians 2:1-10

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience-- among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ--by grace you have been saved-- and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

"The heart set to do the Father's will need never fear defeat. His promises of guidance may be fully counted upon. Does it make sense to believe that the Shepherd would care less about getting His sheep where He wants them to go than they care about getting there?"

"God is God. Because He is God, He is worthy of my trust and obedience. I will find rest nowhere but in His holy will, a will that is unspeakably beyond my largest notions of what He is up to."

"If God, like a father, denies us what we want now it is in order to give us some far better thing later on. The will of God, we can rest assured, is invariably a better thing."

"Obedience to God's will is the secret of spiritual knowledge and insight. It is not willingness to know, but willingness to DO (obey) God's will that brings certainty."

"Victory over all the circumstances of life comes not by might, nor by power, but by a practical confidence in God and by allowing His Spirit to dwell in our hearts and control our actions and emotions. Learn in the days of ease and comfort, to think in terms of the prayer that follows, so that when the days of hardship come you will be fully prepared and equipped to meet them."

"And shall I pray, Oh, change Thy will, my Father,
Until it be according unto mine?
Ah no, Lord, no, that never could be, rather
I pray Thee, Blend my human will with Thine."

"A crucified life cannot be self-assertive. It cannot protect itself. It cannot be startled into resentful words. The cup that is full of sweet water cannot spill bitter-tasting drops, however sharply it is knocked."

"And as we rest our hearts upon what we know (the certainty of the ultimate triumph of good), leaving what we do not know to the Love that has led us all our life long, the peace of God enters into us and abides. And then we see our light."

[A Practicing Christian]...it means that every single act and feeling, every experience, whether pleasant or unpleasant, must be referred to God. It means looking at everything as something that comes from Him, and always looking to Him and asking His will first, and saying, "How would he wish me to deal with this?"

Christ says: "Give me all. I don't want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work. I want you."

"I was not born to be free. I was born to adore and to obey."

"What is saving but taking us out of the dark into the light? There is no salvation but to know God and grow like Him."

"I will not try to convince you of anything about God. I cannot. You must know Him. I only tell you I believe in Him with all my heart. You must ask Him to explain Himself to you, and not take it for granted that He has done you a wrong because He has done what you do not like. Whether you seek Him or not, He will do you justice. But He cannot explain Himself unless you seek Him."

"Sometimes a thunderbolt will shoot from a clear sky; and sometimes into the life of a peaceful individual, without warning of gathered storm, something terrible will fall. And from that moment everything is changed. That life is no more what it was. Better it ought to be, worse it may be. The result depends on the life itself and it's response to the invading storm of trouble. Forever after, it's spiritual weather is altered. But for the one who believes in God, such rending and frightful catastrophies never come but where they are turned around for good in his own life and in other lives he touches."