One Moment of VICTORY

Beloved of God,

These words opened my eyes this morning: ONE MOMENT OF VICTORY.

All at once these words spoke encouragement and a command to a mind that has gone through an evening on the mountain top and a night in the valley. The last 12 hours have been quite the ride.

It started with the TV getting turned off and a suggestion from my husband to read instead.  With 3 Bible studies happening at the same time, it was the perfect break to grab my workbooks, have my Bible app ready and dig in.

The study that put me on a God high was Week 6 of Beth Moore's Thessalonians study about finding your ministry. I have 3:  One that empowers through natural healthcare, one that encourages through jewelry and one that inspires through writing.  Through these ministries, I have found joy and a purpose for my gifts and talents. Two of these ministries also provide for my family and each one has played a role in redeeming a life that has not been so bright and shiny.  These ministries are my witness of God's baffling and infinite love, mercy and grace.

I try to be SO prayerful about following God into each of these tasks but oftentimes He has to stop me from trying to lead Him. I have also come to trust that He will correct me during times my ego tries to overshadow my desire to glorify HIM.  When I am not in the will of God my hands fail me, words don't come and my actions don't bear fruit.

I especially pray about what I write because of all the things that have to take place for me to end up with something relatively coherent: A topic, a beginning and end, the rhythm, the sequence of thought, accuracy and spelling.  It can get pretty hectic and I don't always get it right. My dream is to one day have a body of  work that can be compiled into a devotional.  Because of this, my prayer recently has been over my concern that some of my entries don't start with a Bible verse. I wanted some confirmation that what I write is divine assignment and not just empty words.  I got confirmation last night through a sentence that jumped out of the pages in my study: "Scripture is effectively at work even when a verse does not tie directly to our task." (Children of the Day by Beth Moore) She also later cautions in trying to force scripture into my own situation so we don’t misapply it.  I am taking both to heart.

My valley time would happen shortly after as I tried to fall asleep. With my Hashimoto's disease any number of systems can conspire to wreak havoc on my ability to rest. Last night was especially hard as I dealt with the repercussions of having made poor food choices earlier in the day. I was in pain, wide awake, I had internal tremors, my stomach was rolling and my mind was running like a hamster on a wheel.  I was in that frustrating state in which I needed intervention but was too exhausted to take care of myself the way I should. It would take hours before I fell asleep and I didn't sleep well.

It was out of these two extremes, glowing with God's answer to prayer and wrestling with the limits of my flesh that God offered the concept of  ONE MOMENT OF VICTORY.

I want victory to become an addiction, a longing, something I want my life to be a reflection of. My defeat comes when end goals just seem so far away and too big to conquer. My solution:  Shrink it. If I can have ONE MOMENT OF VICTORY, I may just want that feeling again...and again...and again. These moments would then turn into blocks of time and those blocks would turn into victorious days and those days would turn into habits of a victorious life that MET those lofty goals.  Think of all the ways these small, manageable, bite-sized MOMENTS could turn into BIG blessing. A string of moments where God-made food was chosen over man-made chemicals. A string of moments you smiled at strangers instead of keeping your eyes lowered. A string of moments you turned the TV off to meet with God.  Oh, beloved, I hope you're thinking of your own list of manageable victory right now.  I pray we MOVE and this becomes a movement.   I pray you know VICTORY one moment at a time.