Trial or Gift?

James 1:2-4  (The Message)
Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don't try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.


This passage really poked my heart this morning.  I have been in a season of testing and I have been crying out to the Lord to save me.  But His answer has been to be with me in the midst of trial.  Day by day, I am getting revelation of the power we have in simply keeping our eyes firmly fixed on His.  He is training me to live and move and have my very being in Him.  When the waves of the storm come crashing over my heart, I am quickly restoring my sights towards Him.

Gratefully, the times I take my eyes off Him are growing shorter and fewer.  But I have also discovered that those moments, when I change my focus from Him to my situation, bring more pain than I have ever known.  What I am realizing is as I stay with Him, in Him, the love that we share is becoming so intense.  Any separation causes distress.  So that it is not the trial causing the pain any longer, but the separation from my Lord. 

Thanks be to God for His gifts of mercy and love...He fills my every empty cove.

Return to Me

Have you ever awakened in the morning with a dark cloud of depression around you?  It makes you feel hopeless and unable to get out of bed.  Depression is one of the tools the enemy has used against me in my life.  I remind myself, when "it" comes at me, that I am on a journey and that I have the victory over all the power of the enemy.  Sometimes, I have to slug through some sludge, to get to the Light.

This morning was such a time. Lying in bed, unable to move, imprisoned by emotions of grief and intense "aloneness,"  I cried out to the Lord, " I just need to hear Your voice."  As I lay there, worrying about all these issues running through my mind, I heard Him speak:

"Anna Marie, Anna Marie, you are worried about many things, but 

only one thing is needed, come and sit with me and learn from me."  (Luke 10:41)

Tears began to flow as I felt His Holy Presence.  The depression evaporated, and I felt so loved and surrounded by Love.  I realized that I had been caught up in worry and busyness. I had not taken the time to sit with my Heavenly Father, and be filled up with His love.  As I opened my Bible, and began to read, fresh understanding was there for me. I am renewed. 

And, as it almost always happens, everyone I prayed with today, or ministered to, was suffering from depression or anxiety.  It is beneficial to have training in the trenches of life.  If we let Him, God turns our pain and sorrows into glory for others on the Way.  

Blessings, dear ones.  May you be lifted up and filled with Joy this day!