GLORY GIRL! 6/6/10

In September 2008, around the time my sister Jewel was recovering from bladder surgery; subsequent heart attack and stroke, I began blogging Morning Glory Devotionals on the internet. Jewel was not doing well! My brother Lynn was recovering from Squamish Cancer surgery and was beginning Chemo and radiation treatment. I had started writing Morning Glory earlier that year and wanted to look into having them published but discovered blogging instead.

Lynn began reading them and became a follower from the beginning. I was so happy to give him pleasure in any way that I could. He knew I was praying for him unceasingly and I felt that even though these were my memories, they were his also. Perhaps reading them would give him some pleasure ever so slightly, but pleasure all the same. I read them to Jewel when she was able to listen.

Upon one of our visits with Lynn and Kathleen, we celebrated Sunday morning with a lesson I had recently given on "Glory". The word means so many things in the scriptures. That morning we looked up many of the scriptures that talked about God and His Glory. We discussed many aspects relating only to God's Glory and God blessed us that morning with peace and understanding as we sat around their table.

Each time we visited after that Sunday morning Lynn called me his "Glory Girl!" He will never know how much that meant to me. But I will always remember until that day I too enter into God's Glory, a home of which I long for. As time passed he didn't call me that anymore and I think it was because he wasn't able to read Morning Glory as before.

Moments like these give me pause to remember all of God's blessings, even when they appear in the midst of sorrow and turmoil. God's blessing surround us when we are not even conscious of them. I have learned through the years to look for God's blessings at the time of the happening; I have learned to accept his peace at the time it is offered. This doesn't mean I do not grieve; nor does it mean that I am happy all the time, but it does mean that putting my trust in God lifts me up when I am down. We are to live moment by moment in Jesus Christ!

"If a man loves me, he will keep my word and my Father will love him and we will come to him and make our home with Him." John 14:23b This means that the Holy Spirit; the comforter; will come and live in those who believe and trust in Him! Paul talks about the mystery in Colossians 1:27b "Which is Christ in you, the hope of GLory!"

Why is it that we fight against living our faith in Christ Jesus? Why is it that we want to partake in God's Glory and be a member of His body and yet we want our cake and to eat it too! If we are to live moment by moment in Jesus Christ we need to be aware of the Holy Spirit living within us. "Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord and on his law he mediates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers." Psalm 1:1-3

"Pease I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. John 14:27 Jesus is talking with His disciples here and this promise is for us also. Losing Jewel and then Lynn in such a short period of time of each other, is hard on the physical body. My heart aches; my mind wanders; my emotions are like a roller coaster. Written by "Glory Girl" (J.A.Crenshaw) 6/2/10