sighs of relief

i'll tell you something.

sometimes, in my own secret places in my heart, it is very very ugly. unbecoming. and i hate it when those places come out. but there's good news. a lot of times the Lord BRINGS those places out so that Light can be shown on them and HE can make them more like Him, which in turn, makes them a little more beautiful. thank. the. Lord.

Romans 8:37 says "But in ALL these things we can overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loves us." (emphasis mine). wow. we don't just get by, we don't just say "well i guess i have to live with this" or "it's just the way it is"...no, we OVERWHELMINGLY conquer through Christ. isn't that SWEET!?

"It is precisely there, in the heat of the fire, we are to glorify Him. We do this by exercising perfect faith in His goodness and love that has permitted this trial to come upon us. Even more we are to believe that out of the fire will arise something more worthy of praise to Him than had we never experienced it. To go through some fires will take great faith, for little faith will fail. We must win the victory IN IT." -Margaret Bottome

"You are much neater healed than you would have been well." -Beth Moore

the Lord is all about glory and purpose, not meaningless or haphazard.