The Proverbs 31 woman

I have been reading about the woman in Proverbs 31. She is like superwoman. Great wife, great mom, strong yet loving, helper of the poor, clothes maker and food preparer, the list goes on. I so want to be this woman. I keep praying that God will help me to be this woman. Yes, I fall waaaayyyyyyy short most days, but I am still praying that God will help me to be this woman! I don't think that God would put her in the Bible and then make it an impossible task for us to be like her!

I know that God has so much to teach me, and I am trying to learn every day. I am so thankful that He is patient with us. I honestly don't know how in the world people survive a single day without Him. He gives me hope every day. We live in a crazy world with a whole lot of uncertainty. If I didn't know Christ, I think life would be so scary. With Him, He gives us hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11 says, "For I know the plans I have for your, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future. " His Word has so many promises for those who believe in Him. I have hope here on earth that He will take care of me. I have seen firsthand that He is my Protector, my Deliverer, and my Healer. We always pray protection over our family every day, and we have seen amazing things happen. Psalm 91 is a Psalm all about protection. Every day we quote Psalm 91. Besides the fact that it promises protection, it also promises long life! Some people may say that because it is in the Old Testament, that it isn't for today. I don't believe that. The Bible says that God is the same yesterday, today and forever. He doesn't go back on His promises. He is a covenant God. In Psalm 91:11 it says that He will give His angels charge over us, to protect us. We have seen that happen in miraculous ways! I will give 2 examples, but I have so many others. Jeff was hunting in a deer stand by himself, and no one was around. He stood up to make a shot, and lost his balance. He was high up in a tree, with a barbed wire fence below him, and he wasn't tied to the tree. When he lost his balance, he fell backwards. He was completely laying flat falling towards the barbed wire fence, when he felt someone shove him back up into the tree. Next thing he knew, he was hugging the trunk of the tree. He would probably have been killed if he had fallen, but God miraculously protected him. The other example I will give happened to Evie. She was only 2, and she was playing outside in her sandbox. I was inside at the time, and I heard her crying. She came up to the house and said she had been bit by something. It was only one bite, and I figured it must have been a spider in her sandbox. She was too young to really explain what happened. About an hour later, Jeff and I went outside. Evie pointed to her sandbox, and we saw all these hornets swarming everywhere. Evie hadn't been bit by a spider, she had been stung by a hornet. The miraculous part was that she had kicked the hornets nest with her foot, and only got stung by one hornet. She should have been stung multiple times, and if she had, she could have been killed because she was so young. So I know firsthand how God protects! These are just a few of the many stories we have to tell in our family! I am so thankful for His promises, and for the hope that we have in Him.

One hope for a believer is in knowing that this life is just a blip in time compared to eternity. God gave me this analogy once. Before I give the analogy, I should clarify that some people can really hear God speak. I can, and I hear Him loudly sometimes! I don't know if He does that with a lot of people, but He does it with me! Anyways, I was laying in bed in my room after I had just packed up something to sell on eBay. I had used these little bitty pearl sized packing peanuts, so He used them in the analogy. Jeff's great aunt had passed away the week before, and it was weighing heavily on my mind that she did not know Jesus as her Savior before she died. As I was laying in the dark, God gave me this analogy. He said to imagine my room filled full from floor to ceiling with those little packing peanuts. Then He said to mentally pick one out, and picture that as my life here on earth, as in years. Then He said to picture the rest as years in eternity. Another analogy that Jeff always uses is sand. He pictures a beach, and takes one grain of sand, and that grain is our life here on earth. The rest of the sand on the beach is eternity. Eternity is so hard to fathom for anyone. Many people think that this world is it. That once we die, that is it. Unfortunately it isn't the end, but just the beginning! Imagine ETERNITY. Forever. Never ending. For those who know Christ, what an awesome thing! For those who don't know Christ, I can't imagine. I don't want to imagine. I feel so burdened for people who don't think they need God, or simply don't believe He exists. I want so much for them to see that what Christ has to offer is more amazing than anything. Yes, this life has trials, and being a Christian isn't a free ticket out of trials. But with Christ, He helps us through and gives us hope. He saves us from an eternity apart from Him. That is the biggest thing of all. I feel so blessed beyond belief to know Christ as my Savior. He not only died on the cross for me, but He will never leave me. I am His child. He adopted me into His family after I accepted Him as my Savior. But most of all, He spared me from eternal life in hell. I think about the fact that I will never have to be away from those I love, because almost all of my loved ones have accepted Christ. We will get to spend eternity in heaven with Christ and with each other. I will get to spend all of eternity with Jeff and with Evie. I have 6 babies in heaven that I will get to spend all eternity with. I used to be really sad that I wasn't able to have a lot of kids, but God helped me to see that I do! I may not have a big family here on earth, but I will have one huge family reunion with my kids in heaven! Sometimes I am just overwhelmed with gratitude to God for His goodness. He is my Savior, my Protector, my Healer, my Deliverer. I am so thankful, and feel so blessed. God is so good. So very good. Because of Him, I strive to become that Proverbs 31 woman. I want to be all that God wants me to be!