working on it...

'it' is not poop in this post.

i am going through my many posts and trying to label them. this is going to take awhile... i'm working on it.

i am also working on trying to post more stuff about our crazy and wonderful week in potty training last week... i'm working on it.

i have a gigantic list of things to do today. i am very very slowly working on it...

but one of the things i have on my list is to post about a geat conversation i had with my co-worker yesterday. she was giving me some 'tips' on having quiet times for a friend of mine who is leading high school girls and wants to encourage them in their quiet times. since my friend and co-worker is a pastor's wife, this kinda makes her a 'professional Christian', so i knew she would have something great to say. and she did!

she was telling me about how her church is going through the book of Mark in a year. YES. a year. there are 16 chapters. i'm not sure how they are going to do, it, but it sounds very interesting.

anyhoo, so she has been reading Mark chapter 1 for quite some time now, and she made an observation that she had never realized before in all the many times she has read Mark. This is right when Jesus is being baptized by John the Baptist:

"And a voice came from heaven: "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased." At once the Spirit sent him out into the desert, and he was in the desert forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him." Mark 1: 11-13

the thing that struck my friend was how God said He was please with Jesus and IMMEDIATELY threw Him into the desert to be hungry, alone (well, he was with the devil, but you know what i mean) and tempted. This was a blessing. This was God's will. Sometimes we look at people who have it all and we think:"wow! that person is blessed! they have it all." Then we look at others who don't have it all, who look like their lives are very long desert experiences, and we tend to think: "what did they do to vex the Lord? what sins could they have committed to make the Lord so mad at them?" and this isn't the right way to think at all! and i do it all the time! so shame on me. and shame on you if you do it too. God is blessing us by bringing us through the desert- cause He is the one bringing us there, which is something we tend to forget. His angels are there to attend to us, if we would just let them.

i finished reading Job on my reading schedule, and at the end of Job's trials it says: "All his brothers and sisters and everyone who had known him before came and ate with him in his house. They comforted and consoled him over all the trouble the Lord had brought upon him, and each one gave him a piece of silver and a gold ring." Job 42:11

i love it when things just fit together like a neat little puzzle. if you are hurting, or feel like you are in the desert, don't go it alone. don't let the devil tempt you into thinking you are alone, or unloved or forgotten by God. cause you are not. He has brought people around you to comfort and console you. let them do it. let them feed you. let them pray for you. and if they have it- let them give you pieces of silver and gold rings. (i've got the former two, but the latter two i am fresh out of!) this is definitely something we can work on together.