ON THE FIRST DAY OF CHRISTMAS, MY TRUE LOVE GAVE TO ME.....

CONFIDENCE

Isaiah 30:15a   "In returning and rest you shall be saved. In quietness and confidence shall be your strength."

I use to be really shy. Growing up, from what I was told, I would hide behind my mothers skirts when people approached me.  I had a hard time opening up with people all my life and would normally keep my ideas to myself.  You can believe I never walked up to people I did not know and tell them anything. Yes, I know so many people have a hard time believing I was shy. But true, none the less.

In 1996 I began to do craft shows as I was making rag rugs and after so many, you have to do something with them. I had a gift for color combination and they were pretty easy to sell.  It gave me a lot of time to pray and talk to the Lord while I made them.  As  people began special ordering them, I would pray for the person that was to receive the rug.  The more shows I did, the more I found it easy to talk to people as I had a common ground with them. After a year or so, I found that as I could talk to people about the rugs, I could talk to them about anything. If the Lord opened the door in the conversation, I found I could tell them about the blessings of the Lord, how He loved them. 

The Lord started to give me a compassion for people, for their lives and a desire to pray for them. As prayers began to bubble up in me for them, I began to recieve a confidence in what I was doing.  The Lord gave me confidence, a quiet confidence in Him.  An assurance if you will, that if I would open my mouth, He would put the right words there. Now armed with confidence, I began to quietly visit with people God would send to me.  No big words, no profound statements, just a gentle showing of God's mercy, His wonderful grace.  Taking care not to overstep my place, staying just inside the Lord's reach, so He could pull me back if I began to falter in my way.  Not wanting to say the wrong thing, still a bit timid, learning a little at a time what He wanted me to do.

A couple of years ago, the year before Robert died, a friend came to me. She was in real trouble, serious trouble. She wanted me to tell her what to do.  I felt a trembling in my spirit, for this was something I had to be so right in, no making a mistake hearing from the Lord here.  I began to pray and felt the Lord pour confidence into me. A boldness that I knew His voice and would hear what He wanted me to say. From that point on, I was released from fear and timidity. The Lord does not give a gift and take it back as long as you follow Him and seek His voice and direction.  I now had real common ground.  The Lord!

Confident in what the Lord's will for me, I now speak what he gives me. I pray openly for those in need of prayer, and speak to those the Lord sends to me. It is nothing of me, I can assure you that without God, I am still the same person wanting to hid behind mama's skirts, but it is not just me.  It is me as a vessel of our Holy God who, because of my love for Him, my willingness to be used in any manner He chooses, that I can do what the Lord wants me to do.

On this, the first day of Christmas, my true love, my precious Lord, my King, my God, gave to me CONFIDENCE.  And He does not take back His true gifts, as long as you use them the way He intended them to be used.  I am confident that I will also use what the Lord gives me for His glory, His honor, as I love Him only, this 13th day of December, 2010.