Afternoon dearest friends, I've had a thought weighing on me for a couple months & have very much wanted to blog about it. But most of you know, life for me right now is just "surviving." This is sad, I know. Before we started building the house I asked God to help us get through the year with much grace, to cherish it and not pass through it, mostly because I will never have Lauren at 6 again, Liberty at three again, nor Justin Jr at one. It was important to me to truly live and soak up this time with them...I get sad seeing how many days go by that I just wanted to make it through. "It's only a year," I remember Justin and I saying in the beginning, but I really think someone should have explained it to me like this, "Are you prepared for a year without your husband? If you think he's tired now, just wait, you've seen nothing yet. Are you prepared for your children to need you more than they already do? Their everyday is going to be different too, you know. Are you prepared to find out just how incapable you are? To realize just how bad you can get behind....in everything? To be stretched thin? To unleash all selfishness until you hate how ugly you are without Christ? Are you, Krysten, prepared to meet Christ as your first love again & learn to rely on Him to fill all the many complex needs you have?"
Had this been asked so plainly in the beginning, maybe I would have spent less time daydreaming about wall colors and grasping for God's grace sooner.
The bible speaks plainly that a woman's desire is to please her husband. It's just grafted in her heart of hearts, it cant be helped. Her desire is for Him, her need for Him is great. Her dependency on Him & her reliance on Him is truly a mystery to the feminist viewpoint. And in a sense, I feel that rock in my life has been removed for a time. I have often whispered to the Lord during the day, "I would rather live in a hut & have my husband than have a mansion and never see Him. Why could this be your plan? Your will? It's a gift, I know...but it is one I don't remember asking for." I pray this doesn't sound ungrateful to you, readers....I'm just sharing my deepest thoughts & feelings here. Sometimes we get the most comfort and assured answers from the Lord when we are most honest. He can handle an honest heart, in fact, that's what He prefers. I remember getting married and simply wanting a comfortable home, children, an apron for cooking and that red headed guy pulling up from work everyday. Somehow this past year of building has made me long for that simplicity more than ever...I am very grateful for the gift of this new home, it's beautiful, and it's a gift from the Lord, and my husband. And I long to enjoy this gift with the most wonderful things in my life, the lives of my family. The living, breathing souls that God has placed in my life that mean more to me than any other gift except the gift of His son, Jesus. I am getting tired of picking out chandeliers or can lights and I am very ready to see my husband pull up at five and eating supper with us around the table again. There's just some things that are priceless....chandeliers, on the other hand, are not. :)
This post was not supposed to be about all that. ^ I guess I had a lot to say about that subject, you'll have to forgive me. Here's what I have been wanting to write about lately & have not due to time, 'Does God know you?'
It's really very profound and it's been replaying in my head quite a bit--and maybe I can tie this thought/question in with what the Lord is walking me through above. ^
We know the scripture that states the person who tells the Lord on judgement day about all the things He did in God's name....He even performed miracles and cast out devils in God's name. But this man does not get to enter the kingdom of heaven. Does this not blow you away? I'm sure this man who obviously possessed a power in the Lord to do these things must have been very comfortable with his relationship concerning the Lord. How could you not? He was comfortable in his own regard to the Lord, but the Lord did not know Him. . .scary.
The parable of the ten virgins; notice, they were all waiting on Him and claimed to know the bridegroom. But only the ones who had oil for their burning lamps entered in, the others were told that they were not known by Him.
So we see two different types of people here...someone who is very busy doing things in the Lord's name & even those who are waiting on the Lord but are not yet prepared for His return. Both types really thought they knew Him! They even recognized Him.....but yet, the Lord did not know them?
If you ask someone if they know the Lord, something comes to mind instantly; Sunday school, a preacher's sermon, a prayer they've prayed, etc, etc...and it's usually their basis of "knowing the Lord." It's their idea of Him, they're comfort zone with Christianity, and their idea of being eternally safe.
If you turn the question around, "Does God know you?" it makes you think...it almost makes you gasp for a breath....
The bible says He knew us in our mother's womb, before we were yet formed.
And yet the divide of sin only grows if it is not decreasing. So, yes God loves us, and yes, He formed us and knew us, but there is something very critical about coming to place when we're older and asking, "Lord, do you know me?"
For He is a gentleman....He will not invade someone's sinful heart & life without being asked to invade. We must be careful that our idea of Christ and history with the Lord are not one sided, but that we make sure we are letting Him know us. This is why an honest heart with the Lord is important because He will also be honest. He will recognize the ones that have His nature, the ones that He has worked in, the ones that have suffered with Him, and depended on Him, the ones that have needed Him so desperately. We must let Him know us.....and then somehow our understanding, or knowing, of the Lord will most likely be changed.
Is this why David cried out, "Search my heart and know my thoughts. See if there be any wicked way in me." He was always asking for God to search Him, to reveal sin in his life, to prove him...to guide him.
So among many long days, I let weary sighs & sometimes tears fall into a Father's hand who desperately longs to know me. He does not just want to see my smiling face and pretty dress on Sundays, He wants to hold me in that dark when I feel the ugliest & I've grown the weariest.
Lord, just know me.....just know me. What an overwhelming honor.....He wants to know me.
Blessings friends,
I'm glad you did. <3
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