Jesus, please come back soon.

I heard on the radio today that there is a family that was directly hit by the tornado in Joplin.  This family included a dad who was unharmed, a mom who was pregnant and broke her arm and hip, a 7 year old daughter that fractured her skull, an 18 month baby who passed away, and a 4 year old who is still missing.  I will never know what they are going through, and I don't ever want to know how they feel.  This is tragedy.  I've been praying to see God working through these storms, and I have to keep praying that, because I'm not seeing Him.



Over the past couple of days anxiety has ruled my life.  Is worrying a sin? I think that it separates us from God, because whatever it is that we are worried about, we aren't giving it to Him.  It is so hard for me sometimes.  You know the hardest thing for me to give up and give to God? My sin.  I don't fully understand why, maybe it's because I feel like it is my fault, and I got myself into this, I should be the one to get myself out.  Because it is my fault, then I should punish myself.

⁷ Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life

well, let me think, what is the price for sin, death.  That is a debt I cannot pay.  I have to actually stop and remind myself of the gospel, can you believe that? I told my campers at LFR over the past summers that He paid for past, present, and future sins.  Even though I spoke as if I understood it, I obviously don't.  It is something that I am still learning.

So why do I let my anxious thoughts effect me emotionally, and physically?  I go through life feeling as if I have to be prepared for the worst. Forgetting that whatever is before me, God is already there.

³⁴ Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Ecclesiastes

Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad.

Consider the work of God.  Who can make straight, what He has made crooked?

Better is the end of a thing than it beginning, and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.

All the toil of man is for his mouth, yet his appetite is not satisfied.  For what advantage has the wise man over the fool?  And what does the poor man have who knows how to conduct himself before the living?  Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the appetite: this also is vanity and a striving after wind.

Guard your steps when you go to the house of God.  To draw hear to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they are doing evil.  Be not rash with your mouth, not let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth.  Therefore let your words be few.  For a dream comes with much business, and a fools voice with many words.

When you vow a vow to God, do not delaying paying it, for he has no pleasure in fools.  Pay what you vow.  It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay.  Let not you mouth lead you into sin, and so not say before the messenger that it was a mistake.  Why should God be angry at your voice and destroy the work of your hands? For when dreams increase and words grow many, there is vanity, but God is the one you must fear.