"The deepest spiritual lessons are not learned by His letting us have our way in the end, but by His making us wait, bearing with us in love and patience until we are able honestly to pray what He taught His disciples to pray:

'Thy Will Be Done'."

~Elisabeth Elliot

Thursday, January 7, 2010

coincidence?!?!

i made a resolution (more on this later) to read the whole Bible in a year....granted, i have other facebook friends that have decided to do it in 90 days which kinda makes my commitment look kinda shabby; but regardless, it's a commitment! i chose my reading plan at YouVersion.com. you can also set up an account and read along with me...i chose the "life journal reading plan"...which schedules you to read the old testament once and the new testament twice in year...i tried to do this last year, but got stumped somewhere in the middle of Leviticus

anyways, i was totally blessed yesterday as i was reading because technically, it was my first day.....yes, you read that right....my resolution was already failing only 6 days into the new year so I had a lot of catching up to do....

i started with the chapters i was scheduled to read in Genesis and what do you think it had for me there?! well, they were the chapters where Abraham and Sarah doubt that God would bless them with the many children promised to them......and what about the chapters i was scheduled to read in Luke?!?! it was the chapters where Elizabeth who was barren found out she conceived John and Mary found out about the miraculous conception of Jesus......

my heart was happy when i realized that miracles STILL happen....

my hope is that at the end of my life, it can be said "BY FAITH, Jaclyn dealt with many dark days, the grief of losing her son, the hardship caused by poor decisions, the fear of failure, anxiety over the future......and because of her FAITH, she NEVER lost sight of God's love and the HOPE He offers so freely....because of her salvation, she stands firm upon the promise of Heaven where all wrongs will be made right and there is no more tears...despite her circumstances, she always remained confident in God's bigger purpose"

so.....that sounded like a eulogy but you get my point :)

2 comments:

Nichole said...

Ok - this is CRAZY!!!! I read the exact same thing today. I am reading the Daily Walk Bible (I did this last year and loved it), so my reading today was on Abraham and Sarah. Then, this past weekend, my pastor challenged us to read the whole book of Luke before his next sermon. The part I read today was on Zechariah and Elizabeth and I was thinking the SAME EXACT THING you wrote in your blog. SO COOL!!!!

Jaclyn said...

nichole,

i love that we are in this together ;)