Have you ever heard the saying: “Life is not measured by the breaths we take but the moments that take our breath away?” Years ago I fell in love with that saying thinking of all of the beautiful things in my life. I was blessed and enjoying life; loving being a wife and mom, teaching bible study, volunteering in my kids’
chool. So many blessings, many breath taking moments! In 2010 my life fell apart ~ suicide of a loved one, finding that something devastating had happened to one of my sweet children, my mom had a heart attack and those were just the tip of the iceberg. I was not sure I or my family would recover. I remember watching the ball drop on time square of that year. I was sitting in the living room with my husband. I thought I was okay but as the countdown began…. 10.. I started to tremble…. 9 tears running down my face…. 8….7…. sobbing uncontrollably….. 5….4…. 3… 2…. 1 in my husband’s arms with him asking me “what happened?” Stepping out of that year was a relief I didn’t even realize that I needed. There would be consequences and emotions to deal with for a long time to come, but as January always brings, there was a freshness, a reminder that we always have hope in Jesus. He is the maker of new beginnings where we find mercies new every morning, every season of our lives. (Lamentations 3:22-24) It took me a while to unpack the fact that 2010 had been a year that had taken my breath, my family’s breath away. It took me a while longer, years actually, to understand that God is always there in the breath taking moments. The moments that bring us peace, the moments we breathe in deeply and know without a shadow of a doubt that He is there. And He is also there in the moments that we cannot stand, where we are begging God to help us to take our next step. Those moments that we have our bibles in our laps but can’t find Him, can’t feel Him and the times we are literally flat on our faces on our bedroom floor or doubled over in the shower sobbing, begging Him to show Himself true. The sweetest blessing I know, and I know it for sure is that He is there. He wants everything from us. He is a jealous God and will not have anything before Him. He wants our trust and He wants us to step back from the good and from the bad in our lives and just see…. Him. Is it difficult? Yes sometimes God calls for us to walk through things that we would rather not. I think of Paul: he was shipwrecked, beaten, gave up absolutely everything to follow His Savior. He had something that he asked God to take away and God’s answer was “no.” (2 Corinthians 11: 23-28, 12:7-10) Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane asking His Heavenly Father, “please take this cup from me” God’s answer to Him, again “no.” (Luke 22:42) The outcome of those answers to Paul and Jesus bodes very well for us! We have the word of God we can turn to anytime we want to. We have been redeemed (Ephesians 1:7), saved from an eternal life of hell (Romans 5). We get to dwell in the house of our Father all the days of our lives for all eternity! (Psalm 23:6) Praise God! Will God ask some hard things of us as we follow Him on this earth? Yes! Does He love us? More than we could ever know or comprehend. (John 3:16) Does He have a plan for our lives? We can be certain of it! (Jeremiah 29:11) There are things that I would not have wanted to touch my family, but I have seen and I absolutely need to continue to believe that God is there. Those things have brought me closer to my Jesus. I had nowhere else to run. At the end of the day, I knew and still know that I need Him. Those things that touched my family are a part of all our testimony’s and I believe brought each of us closer to Him and each other. Would I rather have protected my family from having to walk through those things? Absolutely! Would I take away seeing God work and grow each of us closer to Him and each other as a result of those heartbreaks? Absolutely NOT! He is sovereign, He is good. Did you hear that? He is good! (Psalm 84:11, Psalm 119:68, 1 Timothy 4:4, 1 Chronicles 16:34). I encourage you to do your own word search on His goodness; I promise you will be blessed! My prayer for you today is that you find every moment that takes your breath away, good or devastating, as an opportunity to praise Him, to allow Him to glorify Himself through you. May God be in every breath taking moment of your life!