Shameless plug

This is a shameless plug for my son. He has an amazing opportunity to go to Italy with the school. I am attaching the link if you are interested.

https://www.facebook.com/658851749/posts/10155708264851750/

C is for Courage

For the last few years I have tried to find a word that God would have me embrace for the New Year.  Once I feel led to a word, I start by searching for the definition and then I search for scriptures that speak to that word.

The last three years have been 2016 Change, 2017 Trust and 2018 Humility.  This year I feel like the word God has led me to has all the other words wrapped up in it.  My word for 2019 is Courage.  I find this word a bit daunting.  To me it means being strong.  Right now strength seems very far away from me. 

According to the dictionary courage means a mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear or difficulty.  This year is starting out with a lot of danger, fear and difficulty.  In a mere 7 and half days I will undergo surgery for breast cancer.  I have a feeling I will need all the courage I can muster to face and persevere through whatever may come. 

When I did a concordance search of courage in my Bible app the first verse that popped up was Psalm 27:14 "Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; Wait for the Lord!"  Our courage starts with the heart.  Let your heart take courage.  That feeds the mind and the body.  The second verse was almost the same.  Psalm 31:24 says "Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord!"  Both speak to letting your heart "take" courage as you "wait" on the Lord.  That spoke to me.  See I struggle with control and waiting is always hard.  But it told me that I don't have to have courage on my own.  I don't have to muster up the strength to do it.  I just have to wait for God to give it to me so I can take it.  It's not in my own strength but in His.

The next set of verses that came up and spoke to me were 2 Corinthians 5:6 and 2 Corinthians 5:8. 
They spoke to being of good courage and recognizing that our home is not our body here on earth but with our Lord.  After reading them I went back and read more of the chapter and was immediately drawn to verse 7.  Look at these verses together.  Verse 6 "So we are always of good courage.  We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, 7 for we walk by faith, not by sight. 8 Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord."

WOW!  How cool that right now when my mind and heart are searching for the courage to face this year God chose to remind me of these 2 very important things.

1 - My courage comes from Him.  I don't have to be in control.  He will give me what I need to face the days ahead.  He already knows what will happen and all that I will face.

2 - My home is not in this body.  I'm gonna be honest here.  When you get a serious diagnosis of any kind your mind tends to think about the big what if.  What if I die?  For me that would be okay.  Don't get me wrong.  I'm in no hurry to die.  I'm not depressed or suicidal.  I want to see my babies graduate college, get married, have careers and babies.  But I also know that this body will fail.  I will die sooner or later.  This reminder that courage to be here at home in this body takes walking by faith.  Faith in a God who when we were yet separated from Him by sin sent His only Son to die so we could have a home outside our bodies on earth for eternity with Him.  We just have to Accept, Confess and Believe.  So every day of 2019 I need to take good courage - the kind that comes from walking with God daily and at home here in this body until the time comes where I get to go be at home with the Lord.

Our world has so much ugliness in it that for me it takes a lot of courage some days to keep walking with God.  Daily I have to seek His word and pray just so my mind doesn't get overwhelmed with worry and all the ugliness I see in the news.  Going home to be with God seems much nicer some days. 

So as I start 2019 I am going to take the courage that only my God can offer and persevere and move forward knowing that no matter what comes my way, one day I will be home with Him.  What Joy that will be. 

I did this anagram before I wrote this blog. and did my research and got my husband's opinion on the two anagrams I had put together.  He first told me he doesn't like anagrams and I respect that but then he told me this was the better of the two.  For me sometimes spelling in words what this will mean to me helps me internalize it. 

C = Confront
O = Overcome
U = Understand
R = Resist
A = Advance
G = Grapple
E = Embrace

I will TAKE courage in 2019.  Happy New Year everyone.