Tellement de Joies

Tellement de joies - so much joy.

It's a line from this song that runs through my head over and over these days.

The Lord is my Shepherd

I will lack nothing...

He guides me step by step...

In His presence

There's so much joy

So much joy

- - -

During my training in Missouri, God showed me that He was big.  So far beyond my imagination.  So able.  So powerful.  So outside any deplorable box that I had tried to put Him in.  This was also when my grace awakening began and it completely changed how I related to Him.

When I moved back to California and begin preparing for the move to West Africa, I saw repeatedly that God was faithful.  Faithful to keep His promises, faithful to provide, faithful to His own character.

In Senegal, I began to see just how good, how kind He was.  A good Father who loves to give good gifts.  His heart toward me is always good.  Whether or not I can understand what He does or allows, I will always have a thousand reasons to thank Him.

Coming back to California and then eventually moving to here to work at the Bible school, I learned that He is my Rock, my unshakeable safe place.  When the future was full of questions, when change swirled all around me and I wondered who I even was - He was my constant, unchangeable and completely trustworthy.  I flung myself into Him with desperation and He was enough for all of it.

In the past year or so, this truth has continued to surface, clearer and clearer with each passing month: He is the dearest and truest Friend I could ask for, and to walk with Him is unbelievably sweet.

So much joy.

I find myself looking back over the years....

And I realize, with stunning clarity, that He is sweeter to me - not in spite of, but precisely because of the disappointments, the things that didn't go the way I thought they would, and the prayers that were not answered.

This is no glib proclamation.  Life still has ups and downs.  I'm not in some constant state of saccharine happiness.  There are still questions met with silence and prayers that remain unanswered.

But there's a deep confidence now: my greatest joy is finding Him.