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Taking a trip down memory lane this week <3

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If you missed yesterday’s post, I am celebrating nine years on the Journey this week.

I promised so post some flashback favorites, and found this one written originally on May 24, 2018. Back in those days, Russ was still working at ADM and two days a week I headed up north solo to spend time with the band of brothers and Miss Thing. I had written the post the night before and time-dated it to post the following morning as I would be on the road early.

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As I read the words I wrote back then, they still resonate deep in my heart. Wrestling with God in His Word may be what has caused this old gal to limp a bit. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Here is the post from that day:

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For today I have a quick little something because the night oil is burning low and this grandma has to answer the call at five bells….

so…

short 

and sweet <3

This week I was taking my daily walk and I have been trying to do this as a quiet time exercise. 

But my mind is a wandering fool sometimes and I needed something to focus on besides my tendency to become so off-track in my thinking that I can work myself into a skewed mood and attitude that becomes my reality so that I am fit to be tied by the time I get back home and I am undone for the day. 

I pulled up the Notes section on my phone and found where I had saved a Psalm on May 23, 2016…ironic isn’t it…I just now looked at the date of the note and it’s two years ago to the day as I sit here typing this. 

Seriously…I just realize that. Only God. I may be typing with one hand and raising the other to Him. He amazes me…

anyway…see how my mind wanders??????

Ok back the thought…

The scripture I had saved that day in 2016, was Psalm 90: 15-17:

Give us gladness in proportion to our former misery! Replace the evil years with good. Let us see your miracles again; let our children see glorious things, the kind you used to do, and let the Lord our God favor us and give us success. 

I thought that was just a great place to anchor my mind, so as I walked I planned to take it line by line and pray it. 

But as I meditated on the first line….

Give us gladness in proportion to our former misery!

I stopped dead in my thinking tracks. Oh, I kept walking…but I couldn’t get past that. 

Because I was thinking to myself…NO!! I don’t want gladness in proportion to any former misery. We have had us some misery…stinking misery…and I want bonus gladness. 

I went a respectable return on the investment of pain. 

I want more than what we suffered. 

So I asked God why the psalmist had settled for just an even exchange. 

And then I listened and I sensed an answer in my spirit so I honestly typed it into a new note as I walked…have mercy…I need a caretaker some days to get me safely home.

Here is what I typed…

In the Psalm it says ‘give us gladness in proportion to our former misery. Makes me think …I have to think…don’t we want even more gladness than the misery we felt? But I think about when I have a splinter in my finger and the misery that can cause. 

And when I remove the splinter (or actually Russ removes it for me) and the misery is gone; that relief is in proportion to the pain the unwanted offender was causing. My finger is not any better than it used to be, it is just returned back to what it was before the injury. 

Yet the relief is so great that it actually feels proportionately larger than the former misery. In fact the absence of the splinter; the absence of the discomfort of having it lodged in my finger brings so much relief that the finger, and even life itself, seems so much better now that the source of pain has been removed. 

So all I really need is gladness in proportion to the misery…because the JOY of the relief multiplies the blessing to an abundance that exceeds all of the former misery. 

And by this time, I was rounding the corner and could see home in sight.

The rest of the Psalm will have to wait for another day and another walk…because I am still resting in the simple prayer that God opened my heart to realize that all I really want is an equal return of joy for suffering. 

It is more than enough <3 

I pray for you today, my friend. I pray that God will bring you joy in the direct amount of any sorrows He has allowed you to walk through. I pray you know and sense His Presence and His Promise as you journey onward <3

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