Faltering Steps and Bleeding Hearts

Thoughts from my little devotional book, Jesus Calling, the last couple days really ministered to me, and I wanted to share them.

 I guess my heart has been hurting a lot lately--and maybe that is why I wanted to take a picture of this pretty little bleeding heart plant at my sister Kezia's on Easter Sunday. 

And here are a couple little excerpts from my devotions that meant so much to me:

"My power flows most freely into weak ones aware of their need for Me.

Faltering steps of dependence are not lack of faith; they are links to My presence."

 

"When some basic need is lacking--time, energy, money--consider yourself blessed. Your very lack is an opportunity to latch onto Me in unashamed dependence."

Unashamed dependence.

I experienced moments of "ashamed" dependence recently when I went to pieces in the midst of that group that was practicing for prison that I shared about in an earlier post. I just couldn't make it under the stress I was under at the moment, (related to stresses of many months) and I had to leave.

I have to admit that I was ashamed. 

I was ashamed of my emotional, spiritual and physical weakness

and of the bitterness I'd been hit with that I was feeling right then.

I fled to the parsonage and told our dear pastor's wife what I was struggling with, and we both went to prayer.

And I had a choice--to focus on how humiliated I felt, and to give up,
or to humble myself under the mighty hand of God--and to go on;
to rely on my own strength, and quit,

or to give up my own will to the Lord  and depend wholly on God.

Another friend and my dear husband came over a little bit later, and all four of us prayed.

The humiliation I felt at being seen as a broken vessel could have sent me straight home never to be seen at church or prison practice again.

Or it could drive me to the feet of my precious Savior, 

from Whom I could draw strength to try again, and go on.
We do not overcome by thinking about what other people are thinking about us;
we overcome by focusing on what God wants to do with and in us.
I knew God was wanting to work something in my life, and I wanted to let Him do it.
No one enjoys being humiliated; but being humbled is a different thing altogether.
There is joy in being humbled--and brought low to the Savior's feet.

He never fails. He took away my load, and gave me the courage to face everybody again--regardless what they thought of me.

At the prison, I amazed my own self. 

Just a broken vessel, seen perhaps as a piece of dirt who doesn't deserve to sing again,

but what I couldn't believe was that my voice never faltered in the little parts I was supposed to sing.It was not about me, but about the power of God working in me. I haven't had such an experience ever before in my life. And I could have forfeited it by choosing shame and blame over getting a hold of God's grace in a time of need.

Isn't Jesus wonderful??

"My power flows most freely into weak ones aware of their need for Me. Faltering steps of dependence are not lack of faith; they are links to My presence."