Drawing us Closer

Last month the Love and I were able to get away for a weekend for our anniversary. It was a much needed time of catching up for the both of us since we had had my parents living with us for the better part of six months. SIX MONTHS. I once heard a saying that both fish and relatives stink after 3 days. Imagine what six months will do to you. Especially because we live in such a small place (2 bedroom) apartment. And really, we get along remarkably well with my family, but well, as I'm sure you could guess, living with that many adults in such tight quarters began to feel like a refugee camp. Anyways, so Scotty and I DESPERATELY needed some alone time and he surprised me and took me to Santa Barbara for the weekend. The entire trip was planned out. He told me to pack on Thurs night and then he drove me to the train station Fri morning (after he took me to get a mani/pedi). We rode business class to Santa Barbara and arrived at our bed and breakfast a few hours later. He had packed me plenty of magazines and snacks for the ride, and well, the time together was just perfect. Here are a couple photos from our trip...







So long story short, the Love and I were discussing what a whirlwind our life has been this last year. And it brought us to some very real conclusions about who our God is. And who I had previously understood Him to be before this year. Our God is a jealous God. He is jealous over our time, our attention, our focus and our lives. And though He doesn't always CAUSE the hardships to come in to our lives, He ALLOWS them for some very specific reasons. The most important of which is to draw us closer to Him. You see, I feel like before all of this happened in my life (some other major things that happened will be reserved for future posts) I knew God loved me, but I didn't really KNOW God loved me. There is so much inconsistency and turmoil in this world that the only REAL thing we can count on is Christ's love. That's it. I have read the book of James over and over and over again and I never understood why we were to consider it joy when we had trials. Yes patience is important, yes, testing our faith is important but I believe above all these things that the Lord wants to draw us closer to Him. He wants to use these trials as an opportunity to reveal Himself to us in a more intimate and personal way. If we never encounter difficulties, how is it that we can join in Christ's suffering and truly reveal His glory?

Phillipians 1:29 "It has been granted to you... to suffer for Him."

God chooses us to endure difficulty after difficulty in our lives so that we are reliant, dependent and completely desperate for Him. It is in these times that He can reveal to us His perfect peace, and His perfect love. Peace and love that come from nowhere else, but Him alone. So I suppose this was the greatest lesson I learned through my year. And yes, love and I had an INCREDIBLE time drawing closer to one another on our Santa Barbara trip. But we had an even more incredible time drawing close to our Lord this year.

"The human trials of life are burned into us numerous times, and through God's grace, beautiful colors are formed in us and made to shine forever." Cortland Myers