A little hug...

A friend (Danielle Carpenter, for those of you that know her) once shared with me an interesting thought....She said that she thought that God often gave her little "hugs" during the day - little experiences, conversations, or interactions with people that she felt blessed by and that made her smile. Today I had a little "hug" from God, although it didn't come from any interactions with people, but rather interactions with some of my old junk. As I was cleaning out old bins today and sorting them into "garage sale stuff", "stuff I might take to VZ", "stuff I need when I come back to the US" piles, etc....I came across a bunch of old "journals" (for me they're as close to a journal as it gets, as I am not much of a writer...little scraps of thoughts and prayers written in a wide variety of notebooks), and sermon notes, conference notes, notes from discipleship and life group in Tahoe (for those of you who don't know I went on the Tahoe project in 2005) and other miscellaneous (sp?) bible stuffs. Anyway, as I was sorting through and throwing away a majority of it I found a page of random thoughts about God and with a verse that after reading I feel very blessed by...

Zephaniah 3:17 "The Lord your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing."

Through the support raising process it has already been so easy for me to get discouraged. I know that I have a prime target on my back for Satan and that his arrows are definitely aimed right at me. However, all the knowledge in the world about evil, does little to stop the heart from hurting when your friends are unwilling to encourage you or telling you that there's not a chance in the world that you will succeed. But reading over this verse in Zephaniah was so encouraging to me tonight. Not only does it remind me that God IS mighty to save (a GREAT Hillsong song, btw) - He will be the ones doing the saving in VZ, not me at all! Also, He takes delight in me. ME?! Say what?! The great, might, omniscent God of the universe takes delight in me - a sinner, completely base and fallen? It's true though. God the holy, wonderful Father takes delight in me, His sinful, broken child. He will quiet me with His love...boy, do I need it. I'm a worrier. I'm an intense worrier. I don't worry like normal people do. I obsess repeatedly every moment of every day until the thing that I'm dreading comes to pass. I'm obsessive about details and specifics and I overanalyze every possible situation that could ever go wrong in my head. When things get really bad I start to bite my nails, and then I start to shake. When I was younger I would shake so much I'd throw up. Now, I just get nauseous (sp?) and I get these terrible back spasms that leave me cramped in a ball for a day or two. But all of that is in vain! None of my worrying will ever change the plans that God has for my life...and despite it all, He quiets me with His love, and He truly does. An hour ago I was starting to shake (I've got a big meeting tomorrow) and get shortness of breath...but I came into my room and discovered my paper and read Zeph 3:17, and God has quieted my spirit. Praise the Lord! Now that He has reminded me not only of His love and mercy, but His joy - in me! - and the care He takes to quiet my soul....I'm off to do some more sorting of things (because that's what us hyper organized, worrier types do....) I hope that perhaps you can also find some joy in this verse.

Have you had any "hugs" from God today, feel free to share!