Another Beautiful Saturday

It is almost 12 noon on Saturday, Feb 20th. I am sitting in my backyard on my laptop enjoying the spring-like weather. Under deep-blue skies, the temp is a wonderful 60 degrees. As I write this devotion, my dog, Lucy, is running around barking through the fence at the neighbor's dogs...and rabbit. That's right! One of my neighbors has a white rabbit that stays in their yard..or more times than not, in my yard. Since Lucy is an inside dog, she only gets about 15 seconds from the time I let her out until the rabbit has maneuvered through the hole in the fence to escape back into its own yard. My daughter Bailey is inside getting ready before we go to my favorite restaurant for some buffalo wings. She is in year-one of the "teenager stage", so I know I will have plenty of time to write this devotion before she declares herself "ready".

I just wanted to give you a little glimpse into my world at this very moment. It is a moment of complete and total peace. After a hectic week, I think I just needed to take a second to stop and "smell the roses" before the pace of life leaps back into high-gear. I wanted to take this second to praise my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! He has been so good to me. He has blessed me with a beautiful daughter, a nice home, a wonderful career, relatively good health, and so many other things that I may not even realize. Our God is Good. Our God is Great! I wish I could learn to be this peaceful in those moments of panic, frustration, and turmoil. I wish I could learn to be like Jesus was on the lake that day when the terrible hurricane-like storm blew up and panicked His disciples. As they panicked and feared for their very lives, Jesus remained calm and fast asleep. I wish I could learn to be like that. Some may say that panicking is a lack of faith. That's even what Jesus told His disciples that day when they begged Him to wake up and save them. And I am sure my faith needs to grow. But God knows we are also only human, and worry and panic is just a part of this imperfect world. So what lesson can I draw from my current moment of peace?: That ALL things work together for good. The next time I am in the middle of a storm, I am going to try so very hard to focus on Jesus, and allow Him to bring me back to this day on my back porch. Praise Jesus!

Isaiah 26:3 says, "You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you."

Dear Lord, thank you for this moment of peace. Thank you for more blessings than I can count and deserve. I ask you to pick up and dust-off all those who may be reading this devotion and experiencing turmoil in their lives. I ask you to put your loving arms around them, and say "peace, be still". In Jesus name, Amen.