I was chatting with a friend last night and I challenged her to help me compile (write seems like a scary term to me) a book.  The topic of our work would be "why do women run away from the pain that God has placed in their lives to sanctify them". 

I've come to learn that embracing the circumstances in your life with God's perspective gives one true contentment (thanks G for challenging me to Abide rather than Hide from God).  After chatting with my dear friend about this I proceeded to remain awake in bed thinking about it way into the wee hours.  UGH!  She always does that to me (wink,  you know who you are!).  But it was good to think on God's character and write sentences in my head that will be lost forever in the sleepy/conscience relm. 

I don't know if this will ever materialize into more than a couple of friends working out their salvation together but I know with God that all things are possible.  So, hang with me in the next few months.  I think suffering and pain will be a common theme around here.  I look back on the past 34 years and I see a lot of suffering and pain to comment on.  But, dear ones, I'm not living in the muck of life...NO, I am rejoicing that God is Sovereign and Holy.  He has a plan for my life and is working it to His Glory!  I pray that others may find peace and contentment in the reality of our stories/research/honesty. 

True freedom comes from living a life in complete submission to the will of God.  That was last weeks sermon and also the basic premise for living a life of contentment in this world of suffering and pain. 

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.  For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in h im, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith -- that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and may share His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Phillippians 3:8-11