Day Dawns after Night...

My heart grieves this morning for friends, a few of them, who just lost their jobs due to financial situation pertaining to the company.... only God fully understands this. Come to think of it, there is alot that only God understands.

This morning, as I sat in my favorite coffee shop with my journal, my bible and a big cup of medium roast, it was a time of thinking, reflection and journalling my thoughts. I realize that with the wedding over, the thoughts that have been pushed to the back over the past 2 months, are all tumbling forward. It is a bit scary...

I took a few minutes to read from my devotional, Streams in the Desert, which I got from a good friend just after my grandson Jay's birth and death...
It has been a soothing balm to me on several occassions. I realize that sometimes Life just sucks! (as the teens put it!) But because of my faith in the giver of life, and in the one who is my sustainer, my lifter of my head.... I realize that it is only in HIS strength that I can do life. Jesus, thank you for being the great I AM.

This reading today brought comfort to my soul. It began with the preface:
"Don't you know that day dawns after night, showers displace drought, and spring and summer follow winter? Then have hope! Hope forever, for God will not fail you! Charles H. Spurgeon

He was better to me than all my hopes;
He was better than all my fears;
He made a bridge of my broken works,
And a rainbow of my tears.
The stormy waves that marked my ocean path,
Did carry my Lord on their crest;
When I dwell on the days of my wilderness march
I can lean on His love for the rst.

He emptied my hands of my treasured store,
And His covenant love revealed,
There was not a wound in my aching heart,
The balm of His breath has not healed.
Oh, tender and true was His discipline sore,
in wisdom, that taught and tried,
Till the soul that He sought was trusting in Him,
And nothing on earth beside.

He guided my paths that I could not see,
By ways that I have not known;

The crooked was straight, and the rough was plain
As I followed the Lord alone.
I praise Him still for the pleasant palms,
And the desert streams by the way,
For the glowing pillar of flame by night,
And the sheltering cloud by day.

Never a time on the dreariest day,
But some promise of love endears;
I read from the past, that my future will be
Far better than all my fears.
Like the golden jar, of the wilderness bread,
Stored up with the blossoming rod,
All safe in teh ark, with the law of the Lord,
is the covenant care of my God.
copied from Streams in the Desert
L.B. Cowman
devotional for Sept 25th