Seeing the hand of God

     Over the past year and a half I have been incredibly blessed to part of a mentorship program in our church. The program's vision is to connect mature Christian women with younger ladies in order to encourage them, disciple them and hold them accountable in their walk with the Lord. I have been so blessed by the program and my mentor over the last year there are not enough words to explain all I have gained. My mentor has given me so many parenting tips, devotional tips and just encouraging words that kept me going when I felt like I was at the end of my rope.
     As I reflected on my journey with my mentor this last year, probably one of the most treasured things she encouraged me to do was journal. Like I said in previous posts, I do not like to write so the idea of keeping a prayer/life journal was daunting to me. I knew it was a good idea but doubted if it would really help me in my Christian walk. However, I decided she was more wise and probably knew best and boy did she :-)
     I cannot begin to adequately describe to you what a blessing it was to end the year of 2012 and look back and read my journal from the year. Wow! First of all I could see answered prayers. I looked at my writings from Jan-Mar and could see where God had answered those questions I had by Sept. He had closed certain doors I was asking about and opened new ones I didn't even know were a possibility. I could also see reoccurring themes that God had taught me throughout the year through my devotions. Lessons that I don't want to forget and have to relearn the hard way :-) Second, I could see my attitude as I began to write how terrible a day was and by the end of my entry I was encouraged by what God was showing me. I could trace God's faithfulness through my day and even through my year. He was right there with me, always! Lastly, since my mentor encouraged me to write about life events too I could see when my kids were sick or we had a really fun day together. I have record of those funny sayings and conversations with my kids. Suddenly this book that I trudged through writing complaints, prayer requests, what I was thankful for, what God was teaching me became one of my most treasured possessions.
    Something I could not see at the beginning was how amazingly encouraging it is to be able to see the hand of God in my life. I have always known in my head that God is working but in the day to day life it is hard to see Him. However, when you journal it gives you the opportunity to go back, see it and remember it. Of course, there were days even weeks where I missed but even having a glimpse of what God has done encourages me to be even more faithful this year. So I just encourage anyone who is maybe struggling because you don't feel like God is working in your life or you can't see Him to start journaling because He is there and He is working.

Phil. 1:6 "being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."