souldare

Open your mouth and taste, open your eyes and see—
how good God is.
Blessed are you who run to him.

(Psalm 34:8 The Message)

Every ADVENTure brings goodness to our lives.

We are finishing the third day of intermittent rain and all gray skies. Thankfully, today is the shortest day of daylight, a grace in the midst of a long winter; each day will now bring more and more light.

God is good, no matter what kind of weather or which season of the year.

I am savoring some leftover beef stew, while Les is out enjoying some football and hot wings at a Buffalo Wild Wings. We savor each other’s company, but times of solitude add to our ability to live together peaceably in our little boat.

Here I am in my moments of solitude, writing my thoughts down in this space.

Now, I want you to know that my ability to say God is good no matter what is not second nature. And to be honest three days of gray does weigh on me.

Life on a boat, as I have mentioned, breeds routine, so even though I thought I might sleep in, I didn’t. I rose with the dog, fed her, turned on the electric heater and started the coffee. I started cooking eggs for breakfast, when the power just stopped. So we had to stop everything to trouble shoot the problem. We unplugged our main power source, dried off the area around the outlets and replugged everything. And everything restarted, but I still whined, because I wanted one morning where we didn’t have to “work” on something to get our day started.

Since Les is my sole sounding board these days, he had the distinct pleasure of witnessing me participate in a mini-pity party. I was bemoaning the fact of how I can be SO self-centered sometimes. He said how can you have a pity party about self-centeredness. I said it is a self-pity party, silly!

While I was berating myself for being so selfish and ungrateful, Les just shakes his head. And I say, well, apparently you’ve never had a pity party have you?

Oh, the joys of the one who runs to God! I’ve recovered and now am savoring the solitude, listening to Christmas songs celebrating the birth of Jesus, and enjoying the goodness of God on this dark, long night.

The source of my Christmas music is the local Christian station, and I have been so ministered by the musings of these musicians. One song, Almost There featuring Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith, brought me back to pondering Mary.

This verse in particuar caught my attention:

A lonely road, a willing heart
Pray for strength to do your part
You’re almost there, you’re almost there
Trust the Father to provide
Bread of Heaven prophesied
You’re almost there, you’re almost there

As the months of her pregnancy weighed her down, and then news that she would have to travel so near the birth, must have caused her some distress. Maybe she needed to remember, as do we that God is good, no matter our circumstances.

Did the Holy Spirit invite her to “Taste and see that the Lord is good?” And remind her that “Blessed are the ones who take refuge in Him?” Did she think it odd that she was carrying the child that offered refuge to her? Did she know that He would become her Bread of Life, as well as the Portion every one was longing for?

Food for thought!

Here are some highlights of the past few days:

What are you savoring as we are “almost there”?