Ahem...Excuse me God? You want me to trust You?

I was so up and down today. Chipper this morning, depressed early this afternoon, uplifted, then irritated, then goofy, and so on and so forth.

I was freaking out about how I'm going to pay for school because my scholarship stuff is due in a few days and people are talking about money and doing things that require money and it was getting to me. And then I realized, God does not need me to worry. He doesn't want me to worry. Me worrying is not making a positive contribution to His plan in the least. And then I felt peace.

There is a song that they sing at my church back home sometimes, something like "let Your healing power fill me now...take my life and make me whole..and let the peace of God, let it reign." I thought of that today as I felt the peace of God and rested in knowing that He's holding me and providing for me every step of the way.

Last year, before I started SCAD, I would say that God was going to pay for everything because I wanted that to be true, plus if He didn't, there was no way I could go to SCAD. But I'm not sure I had any assurance of what was going to happen and if God would make a way. What if God didn't want me in Savannah and didn't provide the funds, then where would I go? Now, I can confidently say that God provides my every need and He will continue to make it possible for me to go to college.

I have grown so much in my trust relationship with God over the past year because there have been many times where I've had to rely solely on Him for a variety of things, not just monetary issues. I feel more comfortable, more assured now when I must trust God because I can look back on our history and see that He has come through every time. It has not been fun nor has His provision come in the way I expected it to. I also am not saying that I don't struggle anymore because I do, but it's gotten a little easier and I know I'm moving forward. Slowly.

People can say they trust God and that they put their faith in God, but to actually be in a situation where absolute trust and faith in God is necessary and it's all you've got, you realize that it is is a hard place to be.

This is the verse that helped me get out of my slump this afternoon when I was having a pity party conniption fit:

Blessed be God,
Who has not turned away my prayer,
Nor His mercy from me!

Psalm 66:20

I was so excited. I totally felt the exclamation point at the end of the scripture because I was free from worrying. Liberated. The devil was no longer going to steal my joy.

I wrote the verse on my hand so I could repeat it all afternoon. And then it kind of rubbed off because, hello, the South is hot and dampness in unavoidable, but the sentiment stuck with me.

Dear God,

Thank you for every blessing, even the ones I don't realize are blessings. Thank you for loving me too much to let me stay the same. Thank you for disregarding my complaints when I say I don't want to grow anymore because there's too much oppostion. Thank you for Your peace.

Arielle