Just What I Needed Today

So much has happened since my last post! A grandson was born(an exciting, somewhat dramatic home birth), I lost my camera on the way home from said birth in Georgia and lost ALL the precious photos!! We've acquired two darling Nubian wethers(hope to have milkers one day) and two female llamas. This past week I have been obsessed with SEEDS. I did not look at the catalogs when they came in December,no,I was not going to get out of control( like every other year). After this last snowstorm ,though, I succumbed. I'm consumed with visions of this year's garden(plum tomatoes dancing in my head) and feeling somewhat guilty about it and then I turn to today's devotional from Joni. A confirmation of sorts for delighting in growing things but also a wake up call to get my priorities straight. What a joy to be gently prodded by the Good Shepherd~to be affirmed, encouraged and refocused.

Enjoy!

Joni and Friends Daily Devotional February 3, 2011 Dear Linda,

Dreams

"Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way; say to those with fearful hearts, 'Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you.'" --Isaiah 35:3-4 I don't know much about interpreting dreams, but I do know that the Lord used a few weird and wonderful dreams in days gone by to reveal His plans for the future. Take the prophet Isaiah. He lay down one night and had a very strange dream. He found himself in the middle of a desert with nothing but sand stretching to the horizon. He felt depressed in the dream, just like the bleak landscape. He felt hungry and thirsty and very unsatisfied. Just then, the dream took an exciting turn. Out of the sand pushed one small flower and then another. Soon grass sprouted and then trees loaded with fruit. Immediately upon awakening, Isaiah hurried to write down a fantastic description of the abundant paradise blooming and budding all around him. You can read about this strange and exciting dream in Isaiah 35. It's a marvelous chapter for anyone with a fearful, faint heart because it talks about going from gloom to glory, from depression to ecstasy. The good news is that Isaiah forecasts this for all of God's people! So... Is your spirit dried up like a parched desert? Has the joy and singing gone out of your life? Then ask God to replace the endless stretch of your dry days with the Living Water. Soon, out of the sand in your life, will push the beautiful Rose of Sharon. Lord of Joy, strengthen my feeble hands and steady my fearful heart so that I can praise You today. Come soon, Lord, to open the eyes of the blind, to make the burning sands a pool, to crown our heads with everlasting joy, and to make sorrow and sighing flee away.

Blessings, Joni and Friends www.joniandfriends.org