Birthdays And Joy

Birthdays And Joy

Today was a great day, full of blessing and well-wishing. The team celebrated my birthday with homemade brick oven pizza, cookies, Andes mint brownies, and cake. The night was capped off with a candle lit, out door dance party! You know I like to shake it!!!

God has been teaching many things of late, including a journey through the valley of vision. I feel I am in a hard place emotionally and spiritually, but this is where I need to be and have freely chosen to go. God is helping me to discover many new, yet difficult things. He is teaching me to stare deep into the face of suffering and grief, my own personal grief and that of others. It is a place I have seldom looked before. I am learning to empathize at a deeper level, as I am allowing myself to ask God to reveal to me the things that break His heart. In the process my heart is breaking too, but I know there is joy in the maker of all things and that someday all things will be made new.

The Valley Of Vision

LORD, HIGH AND HOLY, MEEK AND LOWLY,
Thou hast brought me to the valley of vision,
where I live in the depth but see thee in the heights;
hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold thy glory.

Let me learn by paradox
that the way down is the way up,
that to be low is to be high,
that the broken heart is the healed heart,
that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,
that the repenting soul is thy victorious soul,
that to have nothing is to possess all,
that to bear the cross is to wear the crown,
that to give is to receive,
that the valley is the place of vision.
Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen from deepest wells,
and the deeper the wells the brighter thy stars shine;
Let me find thy light in my darkness,
thy life in my death,
thy joy in my sorrow,
thy grace in my sin,
thy riches in my poverty,
thy glory in my valley.


The Valley of Vision
A collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions