Hi ladies – a guest post for you today ~ enjoy and have a blessed day.
Our Year of Drought
from Gleniece at Desert Rain Blog
Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7
Have you ever had one of those years when nothing good seemed to happen and you couldn’t wait for it to end? I’m not talking about real tragedies, just soul-dragging hardships and one-after-the-other disappointments that plague us all.
Ours was 2013. We’ve had worse years, but this one left an impression that has stayed with me.
Mighty Man’s (my husband) work had dried up. With little income, our needs piled higher than my ever-growing laundry mounds.
If something broke (and what doesn’t, nowadays) there was no likelihood of its replacement. Home-improvement plans were once again relegated to Fantasyland.
My truck sat with four rotting tires and no insurance. Hope of activities away from home were nil. And I had no internet, so no escape through cyberspace either.
Even my garden, a tiny spot I’d carved out of my junkyard surroundings, ceased from production. No tomatoes, little rosemary, and the sudden demise of other hopefuls. Flowers I yearned for to brighten my day withered before they bloomed.
That summer, Paper Wasps invaded our life and killed our dog. Their nest location a mystery, every day thousands flowed back and forth, like an angry river, through our back porch. My son and I were both attacked twice, and Mighty Man seven times.
And before the year was up, we had a family friend of more than twenty years betray us.
Inside or out, whether emotional, physical, or financial, we were tried.
But as the year finally came to a close, I realized something astounding:
Our year of drought was really a blessing.
While all around us there was lack and loss in the physical world, there was a bounty of thankfulness, patience, peace, and joy in the spiritual.
NOT HAVING WHAT YOU NEED PUSHES YOU TO REEVALUATE WHAT IS TRULY NEEDED.
EXPECTATIONS ARE TAKEN APART AND CLOSELY EXAMINED.
LONG HELD BELIEFS OF HOW THINGS SHOULD BE GIVE WAY TO GOD-BREATHED SOLUTIONS.
We could have easily griped and complained (I know I did in years past), but instead we viewed these circumstances as areas to conquer disappointment, expectations, and wantonness.
Satan, like the river of wasps on our porch, tried to attack our faith with repeated disappointments, our patience with constant annoyance. He tried to unseat our joy with the sting of want. But he failed.
Instead of allowing the enemy a victory, we banded together, husband and wife, against these attacks knowing the God of the universe had total control of it all.
Each year we will face trials. It may be as simple as dead flowers, or more harrowing as wasp attacks, broken trucks, and betrayals.
But when we hand over every frustration to Him, seeking His will in it all, the peace of God that passes all understanding will be ours.
Abiding in the Vine,
~ Gleniece