BE EN-COURAGED

Well, dear ones, I got so many responses to that last blog that I arose this morning in great encouragement. Did you ever think about that word "encouragement"? It means something has brought you COURAGE! For me, I felt a new courage to start writing again, something I had almost laid in the dust. It was amazing to get so many emails from those experiencing the same loss and floundering that I am in. Perhaps we can now "flounder" together as we make our way through this season of rest and restoration.

Part of the big breakthrough, for me, is discovering the very small ways in which I can take delight. Instead of looking at the pictures on the wall in my study of me ministering to thousands of Africans in Nigeria and leading worship for a huge conference in St. Louis, I take the time to marvel at what God is doing through the works of my hands in planting a garden. Oh, how slowly this little garden has grown this year after five months of total drought in Colorado. Squash that would normally be taking over half my yard is JUST NOW bearing blossoms. Instead of picking 20 cherry tomatoes for my salads in July, as I used to do,  I was excited this morning to find five of them red and ripe! One big, bold bell pepper is hanging on a vine and I cannot wait to chop it up into my chicken curry tonight!

I felt the Lord was showing me that my garden is really a picture of me right now. I am not twenty tomatoes, I am five. But the five are delicious and a gift from God. And oh, the green beans! They were planted last mid-May, and now in July there are finally dozens and dozens of little white blossoms and the tiniest tips of green beans. It looks like a garden of Hope, a display of Promise!  It is taking much longer than normal to develop and to produce, but that's OK. I have been through a long drought too and I am taking much longer to accomplish something and perhaps producing much less. But like those little blossoms I too am full of promise!  

And that's you too. Be EN-COURAGED! The drought is not lasting. The River of God is still making a way through the desert.