Cool stuff to get you thinking and praying…

I have mentioned before how I feel like every devotional/sermon/Bible verse is written for me in my infertility struggles.  Since I have started blogging I have made sure to make note of those verses and devotionals that I come across so that I can share them.  I normally try to blog about them as the Lord brings them across my path, but they have been building up.  So here are a few things the Lord has laid on my heart.  I am not including any of my own thoughts, just giving you exactly what I have been reading.

• “When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought joy to my soul.”   -- Psalm 94:19
• "Give thanks in all circumstances."   -- 1 Thessalonians 5:18
• The following Bible verse and devotional is from my Girlfriends in God daily devotional -"Whenever trouble comes your way, let it be an opportunity for joy. For when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow."   -- James 1:2-3  NLT   “The highest joy will come through the greatest pain. The greater the pain, the more we are forced to search for and cling to the hand of God! That only happens when we choose the right attitude toward pain….God's ways are higher than our ways and most human reactions are in direct opposition to the paradoxical ways of God. Honestly, there are times when what He has asked me to do simply does not make sense - to me - and there we find the problem. Faith is a matter of blind obedience, not human logic. At the heart of every storm is victory, just waiting to be claimed.    Examine the following list of character traits. How have your life storms encouraged growth in each area? 
        Purity_____  
        Love _____
        Power _____
        Patience _____
        Kindness _____
        Understanding _____”
• Also from Girlfriends in God - "I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry."  Psalm 40:1 (NIV)  - “I had always thought of waiting as a passive and even wasteful experience.  But while sitting at the bottom of the pit of clinical depression, I began to see that waiting is active and can be a powerful spiritual experience.  To wait means to accept the pit.  Picture yourself falling into a slimy pit.  Your first reaction, like mine, would probably be to frantically claw and struggle, fighting your way out!  When you have used up every ounce of energy, you stop struggling and sit down to rest, waiting for help because that is all you can do.  You have no other options.  When hard times come, we immediately begin to beg and bargain for rescue - for a way of escape.  God loves us too much to waste our pain.  It is a shallow love that always rescues easily.  It is a depthless love that always rescues quickly. Sometimes our Father says wait.  So be patient, accept your pit, and know that He is at work.”