Free!

Life has been ... hard ... for the past few weeks. We have been battling our flesh, futility, and satan ... hard. We fail far too often. My body has been going through a lot and I have never felt so fearful. Steve has been working much (praise God for work!), and he is very tired. We often feel as if messiah was just a dream. It happened so fast. It was over so quickly. So many questions go through our minds and hearts. Doubts and fears try to haunt us. Idols rear their ugly heads far too often. 

But today. Today I woke up with the greatest gift. Today I woke up with a renewed sense of freedom.

Why does it take so long for the truths I know and need so badly to get from my head to my heart? I toil and labor when I KNOW the way out, but I just can't get there. I guess this is one of the mysteries that only God knows the answer to. I heave learned that I HAVE to stay in the valley for a while before my heart "gets" it. It just doesn't happen automatically. Understanding and experiencing truth takes LIFE.

The new view from our hallway upstairs. It is a sweet view!

She is amazing. 

He is amazing. 

They are all amazing. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

I pray that we stay free. 

So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”

Romans 8:12-15

I ask that we live by faith. 

...wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience.  

1 Timothy 1:19

 

I plead that we fight with the strength He provides. 

...work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

Philippians 2:12-13

...equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ...

Hebrews 13:21
 

I beg that He enable us to endure until the end, so proving that are saved. 

But the one who endures to the end will be saved.

Mark 13:13 

Oh how I hope that we are saved.