God is Faithful

Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord.

***

This week has been one of the craziest of my life. I have three horrible exams, all of my regular classes, all kinds of meetings, interviews, a bunch of personal and friend commitments, music commitments ... some of my family members are really sick, and the rest are as tired and crabby as I am ... something important in our garage door snapped today, so the garage door won't work ... it's raining and melting all the sloppy snow outside ...

Stuff kind of stinks right now.

I was starting to feel kind of overwhelmed by it all, especially when I started to jot down my to-do list on my hand and it took up the entire palm.  :-}  But out of the blue, I remembered a song we used to sing when we were little: "The joy of the Lord is my strength."

Then I thought of these verses:

Although the fig tree shall not blossom, 

neither shall fruit be in the vines; 

the labour of the olive shall fail, 

and the fields shall yield no meat; 

the flock shall be cut off from the fold, 

and there shall be no herd in the stalls:

Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, 

I will joy in the God of my salvation.

The LORD God is my strength, 

and he will make my feet like hinds' feet, 

and he will make me to walk upon mine high places. 

To the chief singer on my stringed instruments.

~ Habakkuk 3:17-19

These verses and others reminded me that even when everything around me is awful and I feel like I can't do it all, the Lord is still with me and He will give me the strength to do everything I need to do. He gives me wisdom to know what choices to make (He's been doing that this week), strength to carry on with very little sleep or food (He's been doing that this week, too), and joy to rest in Him when I'm feeling anxious and irritable (yes, He's even been doing that!).

I'm rejoicing to experience the truth that God is even closer to us when things are difficult than He is when things are easy. I have never run to Him so many times in a day than I have this week. Lord, what should I do? What should I say? How can I possibly do this one more time? He sustains me with verses, with the encouragement of my family and friends, and with "psalms and hymns and spiritual songs" in my heart.

I guess this post doesn't really have a point, other than I just wanted to share with you how the Lord has been sustaining me through everything in my life this week.  :-)  It's been a beautiful experience despite all the lousy stuff going on.

How do you experience the Lord's care during difficult times?

Love in Christ,

Vicki