Dear Ones,
Hope you are enjoying the weekend. I plan to make stir-fry using up the fresh veggies and also make another fresh quash pie.  Kurt will be heading home from the lake after catching fish, having bonfires and saunas and closing up the cabin.
Devotions from Judy’s heart
Recently, I asked the question for the week, Have you experienced a dry time when you lacked warm feelings toward the Lord and experienced a Dark Night as the Lord was doing His purifying work? I had many responses but I want to share with you one from a young mother that blessed me and that I think will bless you and speak to your heart too.

“I have experienced both dry times and distant cold times with the Lord. During Covid I lost the room I was renting from a family because I was a retail worker and they were concerned that I might put them at higher risk of contracting the virus. Many believers I knew and loved also shared concerns about my presence because of their elderly loved ones. A non-believing coworker opened up a spot in her home for me to stay 3 months. I felt so lonely and I couldn’t visit my mother who was suffering with dementia. In that dark time, I would walk a lot. My coworker lived in Duluth, so I would walk down to the water and sit on the cold rocks in the darkness of early morning. One particular time that I did this, I was journaling and crying. I was cold and lonely on that day in March. As the tears slowed, I remembered seeing the sky begin to lighten.

The sun began to rise over the vast waters of Lake Superior and as the rays of light shone brighter, their warmth touched my tearstained cheeks and the heat permeated into my face. It was as if the Lord was slowly permeated into me and I felt a renewed hope that I wasn’t alone. I might be without human companions, but never am I without my Jesus!

God was using this time in my life. In the loneliness I found myself drawn to the One who is omnipresent, and “ever present in our time of need.” I was seeking Him, and He (true to His word) let Himself be found by me. “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. Matt. 7:7 So remember that…“Weeping may last for the night, But a shout of joy comes in the morning.” Psalms 30:4-5 NASB

When we keep seeking Him above all other things, He will fill us with His Joy! In the dark, there is a Light! I would encourage all who are enduring the night to keep firm in the faith, and to keep reaching out to God even if He seems silent.

A quote I appreciate from that time in my life reads, “If dependance on God is the Goal, then weakness is an asset.” -unknown  And as Elizabeth Elliot wrote, “This hard place in which you perhaps find yourself is the very place in which God is giving you opportunity to look only to Him, to spend time in prayer, and to learn long-suffering, gentleness, meekness – in short, to learn the depths of the love that Christ Himself has poured out on all of us.”

Keep crying out and reading out to God, but remember that His knows the path to walk and it’s a hard road at times filled with dry patches, dark nights, and perhaps silence, but never are you alone. Like a good friend, the Lord is waiting to hear all that you have on your heart, and in the moments of silence He is giving you the opportunity to be raw, honest, and vulnerable. Then the light will break through the darkness. It will burst into a radiant glow and it will brighten your countenance, and His loving warmth will permeate into your soul!”

Challenge for today: Meditate on one of the verses shared and put one to memory

 Blessings on your weekend and prayers and love, Judy