**(My family and I are getting ready for our first ever family vacation next week! In order to have time to pack, rest up, plan and enjoy this time, I’m pulling some of the most popular posts from my blog and re-posting. Hope you don’t mind.)**

But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things! – Galatians 5:22-23

This morning I woke from a dream of my old life.  This happens every once in a while, and it always leaves me feeling restless and a little melancholy.  The dreams make me nostalgic for the way things used to be, when my calendar was full and my legs were pumping.  The things I filled my days with were good things: taking care of home and family, visiting the sick and shut-ins, teaching, cooking meals for elderly, volunteering in my children’s school.  Some days the thought that those pursuits are now beyond my abilities is a crushing thought.  Why would God allow me to lose abilities that I was offering up to Him? 

I just keep reminding myself that there is indeed a time for every purpose under heaven, and there are seasons in our lives.  I wish I had realized before that I didn’t need to try and fit every purpose into every season in order to be successful or worthy.  Do I really have to “do” anything to be worthy of God’s love?  NO!!  It is my own pride and confusion that drove me to those things.  While everything I listed is a good thing if you are able, those things are not required for us to be considered contributing members of the Lord’s Body!  So, I am thankful that I was able to be busy in those ways when I could, but now I must ask “What do I now have to offer?”

I wish I had recognized the “have-it-all-and-tomorrow-is-too-late” mentality of our world for what it truly is… a lie.  Is this season in my life difficult?  Yes!  Are there times I wish to go faster and do more?  Certainly!  But I now try to recognize those as the calling of my fleshly desires, not the calling of the Spirit.  In truth, each Fruit of the Spirit can be found in my often invisible and segregated life.  He is still at work within me!  I’ll give a few examples I have found:

*love – listen to my children, support my husband, pray for enemies
*joy – sing praises, make others laugh, think of heaven
*peace – be still, pray, submit
*patience – embrace my weakness, start each day new, take my time with others
*kindness – send cards to sick, make bookmarks for others, smile
*goodness – tell others about Christ, pray for others
*faithfulness – choose Jesus, never shy from the truth, work in my marriage
*gentleness – answer softly, give credit to God
*self-control – when I fear, do it anyway; turn thoughts back to hope and faith

By going deeper into these fruit, I am coming to know God, being known by Him… not merely knowing about him.  These are the examples I wish to leave to my children.  These are the places I wish to explore for my own self. 
No, O people, the LORD has told you what is good,
and this is what he requires of you:
to do what is right, to love mercy,
and to walk humbly with your God. – Micah 6:8

 

O God, I offer up to you today what sometimes seems to me to not be enough.  Help me to rest in your assurance that your Spirit can still work and move in my damaged body.  My desire is wrestle my own spirit into submission, no matter the condition of the flesh.  Thank you for allowing us to always be enough, just as we are.  In Jesus’ Name, Amen….

 

---

If you have been helped by this post and think it could be helpful to someone you know, please share this post on the social network of your choice for me.

All you have to do is click one of the buttons below.

May God Bless You,

Shelly