Day 8: Loving my family

     My family has been under quite a bit of stress lately. Combine that with staying up late watcing feel-good movies for escapism, and, needless to say, everyone is a little testy. It's been bothering me. Today was the same old stuff. But later my sisters and I had fun building a Quantum Flier 2037, and watched the Spiderwick Chronicles. After seeing that family, mine isn't so bad. I really am thankful for my family. I just don't like dealing with their issues sometimes - usually when I am equally tired and overstressed.
     Lord, Thank you for my family. Please help me to love them like You do. I don't like being upset and annoyed with them. I know it's not right, but I can't help it. It's my old self talking, and I don't like feeling that way. Help me to love with the love that only You can teach me, so that I don't give into my old self. Thank You for giving me a family that I can learn to love and be a part of.

Day 6: Learning from Dogs and Kids

     Tonight while I was taking the dog out, he saw something or heard something that bugged him. He got a little tense and was staring intently into the yard a few houses down watching for whatever it was. I didn't see anything. I squatted down to his level and looked in the direction he was looking but there was nothing there that I could see. While I was looking, he came over and sat between my legs. He was still watching but he started to relax. He looked up at me and licked my neck and did his little anxious foot-stomp if my hand wasn't on him. We just sat there in the moonlight for a second. I'm amazed that dogs ask for you to touch them. Every dog in my family does it. They'll sit next to you (or on you) and look back at you pleading. So you give in and pet them, but, as soon as you take your hand away, they look up at you, stomp their feet anxiously, and nuzzle your hand. When they know you love them, they don't want you to take your hand off of them. Children also are constantly wanting affection. They want to sit in your lap, hold you hand, have you pick them up and carry them around, even if they don't know a lot about you. They don't need to know very much before they start loving you and wanting you to love them back. And when it's time to leave, there are always tears because they didn't have enough time with you.
     It feels so good to have my dog come to me and sit at my feet wanting me to pet him, and to have one of my little cousins curl up in my lap just resting there and wanting to spend time with me. I can't keep my arms from hugging them. Shouldn't this be how it is with God? He loves it so much when we come to Him and rest in His arms just wanting to be with Him and feel Him love us. And shouldn't we come to Him just like children, beginning to love Him and wanting to feel Him love us back? And shouldn't there be sadness when we can't spendenough time with our Father? So many times I feel like I'm living under His shadow, trying to push through my day knowing that He's there watching and wanting this or that for me, not because He's a tyrant but because I know what He expects of me and want to do my best for Him. I need to remember to spend time with my Father just letting Him love me, resting in Him and learning to love Him back.

Day 3: Where are you?

     I'm liking waking up every morning and wondering where I'll see God and what He will say to me that day. Where was He today? I'm not sure. Maybe I just wasn't looking hard enough. I did think about Him a lot today. I'm teaching tomorrow about the Holy Spirit and the love that He gives us for each other. How can I possibly explain such a thing as perfect love? I don't even understand it properly; I don't know how to love like that. Jesus is the only example we have of a human living God's perfect love. That's why we need help from the Spirit to do it. I'm just praying that the Holy Spirit will speak and keep me on track.
     Also, today I was on a Bible study website and someone had posted a link to their blog. This person is an atheist and, for reasons I do not know, has decided to read the entire Bible in a year. He or she is over halfway through Ezekiel. This person does not understand what he or she is reading and is scoffing and chiding all the way through it because of pre-existing beliefs. Even though comments abound explaining the different passages, this atheist blows each one off. I hope when this atheist gets to the New Testament, everything will come together and make more sense. Reading just a few of this person's posts made me feel sick. Not disgusted sick so much as sad sick. To think that there are so many people like that out there, and I don't know who they are or how to help them. Many of them I can't help. I don't know why they would ever listen to me - about anything. [But perhaps that's a stereotype I should get rid of; it doesn't sound like something the Spirit would say]. I was really upset about it. A little later on, I thought that God must feel the same way - even more so - when people mosey through life thinking that they have it all reasonably figured out, a good handle on things, and sometimes taking pride in the fact that they do. I can't fully imagine what that is like for God. I only know what He indicates in His Word. 
     Although nothing today stood out as being directly of God, He always finds a way to invade my day through my thoughts or other things. It's like that song "Can't Get Away" by Rush of Fools. YouTube it.