My Nugget Of The Day

Don't you just love it when you read something that jumps out at you? Something totally unexpected --- and perfect. That just happened to me, and I feel like I was handed a little nugget from God himself. As those of you that stop by my blog often might have noticed, blogging has not been at the top of my To Do List this summer. As always, when I take a bloggy break, I have missed it. Well, this past week Corey was out of town for 5 days, and I had a chance to work on catching up my blog. Today, I was looking at one of my favorite blogs, Bring The Rain, and in the comments of one of her latest posts a comment caught my eye. When I went to that blog, A Road Less Traveled, there was a quote there that took my breath away!

I'm convinced that there is nothing that can happen to me in this life that is not precisely designed by a sovereign Lord to give me the opportunity to learn to know Him.

~ Elisabeth Elliot

I knew I loved Elisabeth Elliot, but I have never read that particular quote.

And this lady, Misty, who blogs at A Road Less Traveled has had "something" happen in her life. I have not read the details of her story, but I can see that her baby boy was born and lived only 70 minutes. That is more of a "something" than many of us can bear to imagine, but she has been blessed with the insight and strength to see it for what it is... Not that that is easy. I can imagine that it is excruciatingly hard.

So, why does this quote speak to me? Maybe because God knew that today - Monday, August 3, 2009 - I would need to hear this particular message from Him. Because I am still learning. While I feel like I have grown a lot in the area of understanding God's sovereignty and His plan in my life, I still need to be reminded daily of my position and purpose. I whole-heartedly believe that nothing passes through His hand that He has not allowed... but sometimes I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why He would allow certain things. I do know this - His ways are not like mine. The way that I think does not even come close to matching the way He does. While I certainly wish that hard things would simply not come into my life, I am more sure than ever that He has a purpose in what He allows into each and every one of our lives. Not one thing that has happened or will happen to me is a surprise to Him. In fact, I believe that He allows each of those things and is using them to work together with other things for what HE defines as good.

So where does this leave me? In a place of fear of being out of control? Sometimes. But most times it leaves me in a place of peace. A place of total dependance. And trust. And faith. And that is where I believe that I am supposed to be. And in that, I pray that I am, as Elisabeth Elliot said, learning to know Him.

~~~ Before I posted this, I was looking up Mrs. Elliot's quote, and I found these 2 quotes that I love just as much as the first one. I think that I will have to pick up an Elisabeth Elliot book soon. I love that lady! ~~~

When ours are interrupted, his are not. His plans are proceeding exactly as scheduled, moving us always (including those minutes or hours or years which seem most useless or wasted or unendurable) "toward the goal of true maturity" (Rom 12:2 JBP).

~ Elisabeth Elliot

I am not a theologian or a scholar, but I am very aware of the fact that pain is necessary to all of us. In my own life, I think I can honestly say that out of the deepest pain has come the strongest conviction of the presence of God and the love of God.

~ Elisabeth Elliot