Day 29 of Thanksgiving

I'm thankful to be part of bible studies and not have to fear for my life to be part of them, to worship the one and ONLY GOD...JESUS CHRIST. On Wed. mornings I have PWOC (Protestant Women of the Chapel). PWOC was started 51 yrs ago in Germany on an Army base (not sure which one, I'll have to look that one up), but spouses who wanted and needed to have fellowship with other ladies who were half a world away from their family, friends, and all they knew. As with most military families, your husband's are often gone quite a bit if not deployments, there's training that can take them away for 1 day to weeks at a time.

PWOC has grown to not only Army wide but all military wide. It was truly a saving grace for me this last deployment. I was surrounded by wonderful, Godly women, who many were going through a deployment too, quite a few had just finished up, and others were about to enter. There's no "I'm worse off than you, feel sorry for me" stuff, because well you can't pull that junk when you're surrounded by women who are praising JESUS and also going through the same seperation. I'm so thankful that God led me to PWOC last yr when we moved here, that I got involved. Now I'm on the board for our chapter and I love it!

I am also thankful for Wednesday Night Alive, it's an evening bible study for all. The little ones under 5, go to childcare during the bible study, 5-12 go to children's choir, and then there's also the youth group that has a bible study. They feed us dinner first, then we split up into our study groups.

 

Today God showed me over and over how he will use our circumstances to draw us closer to him. That he will push us to our limits and beyond, because he knows we can do it. He demans us to love those WE as humans deem unloveable. He holds us accountable when we sin. God doesn't let us off the hook. God also does not tell us "well if you're a GOOD Christian, I will not give you any challenges." Many people live in the illusion that if you give your life over to Christ that life will then become easy, you will no longer face challenges, or struggles. The fact is, it's just the opposite. You'll be tested, questioned, challenged, and sent sometimes through what feels like the ravages of hell. Yet, we must continue to praise JESUS. Let me repeat that.....We MUST Continue to PRAISE JESUS! When we tell ourselves the lie that we just can't take anymore, we are to not only walk away from that statement, but to PRAISE Jesus for having the faith in us to understand what load we can carry. One huge misconception is that the whole load we carry is from Christ. It's not, so often we take on challenges that are not ours to take on. We need to be prayerful in all we do. We need to seek God's wisdom and then we MUST be PATIENT. Ladies out there, read that again we MUST BE PATIENT. Just because I ask for something tonight, does not mean tomorrow, or Friday, or Saturday, or Christmas, or by New Years, etc, etc, etc it does NOT mean that GOD will give it to us right then. We are to wait and be still.

My thanksgiving today is that I am thankful for God's blessings of bible studies which challenge me and convict me. I give thanksgiving for the challenges GOD gives me and places in my path. How I react to those challenges is all up to me. I can either see how God's placed it in my life and I'm to grow closer to him, to seek him more so, and lean on him, wait on him, and realize that he will answer us at HIS PERFECT TIMING. His perfect timing is alive when it hits us. We need to so often be still. We will pray for hours without cease. It's not just praying for you or about you.

 

I will leave you with this thought ...It's easy to praise GOD when life's going our way. The true test of our faith is when we're prasing GOD when life's not perfect and not the way we want it or thought it'd be.

 

Well this has gotten longer than I intended! I need to get to bed, it's after 3 am here in Germany!

 

God Bless