He Didn’t Have to, But He Did!

Good morning! Before diving in to today’s thoughts, I want to catch you up on school. I went in to my professor’s office at 5PM yesterday and presented one graph from one article (though I spent hours preparing the entire thing!), and he stopped me and said “You got it!” and marked me with an 85. Last week he told me that was the highest grade I could get if I showed him knowledge and graphs. So, done! The remainder of the eight weeks will be a breeze!

I’m home this morning, actually I have taken a lot of mornings home as of late. I was working at our office 20 hours a week but since we moved, I am struggling to get in 10. Gratefully Hubby, though he has voiced that he misses me up there, has been so precious about me taking more time off. I asked for June and it’s September and I am still very haphazard in my arrivals! I told him last night that I was going to set a schedule to be there so that our team will know, and then I will stick with it (barring school related non-negotiables). That makes it easier for all of them I know, so I am going to be diligent in giving them that.

Today, I am home and spending time in my office. It is so pretty in here with turquoise walls, pictures that I love, and Lladro’s (statues) that my mother gave me or were hers, along with a picture of her with her dog Coowee, and when the sun is shining it is just beautiful in here! My picture window looks out to our neighborhood street and I can see the beautiful green trees in our yards. When they designed this neighborhood, they put a tree in the very front of every yard and the trees are gorgeous! It is such a beautiful sight to see while sitting at my desk typing and working. I feel so blessed to be in this home after the ordeals we’ve gone through with houses. When I got sick, it didn’t just effect my health, it cost us financially in every way. One of those ways was having to put our house on the market as a short sale and hurting our credit because we could no longer keep up with the payments and how much we were behind. We also had to file bankruptcy, but only did so after cashing in all of our retirement trying to keep up with medical bills, home bills, office bills, and three kids needs. The bankruptcy is about to completely fall off our records, next month in fact. The journey has been hard but educational. I wasn’t taught the value of money as a child, I don’t think we even had a savings account. From my perspective, based on things my mom said and things that I saw, it seemed my dad’s philosophy was, “I can always make more.”. Considering he has made, and lost millions in his life, I guess it worked for him somewhat, but I know he made a comment to Hubby a few years back about still having to work so hard at his age. (A couple of years after that comment he decided to run for governor again, like that wasn’t hard work. I guess he is just built that way.) Without really knowing how to manage money, we ran our lives and bank accounts by that philosophy for way to many years. Seven years ago, it finally caught up to us when I was too sick to add income to our family needs and it all fell into Hubby’s lap.

As I walked around our home this morning and landed in my beautiful office haven, I had a thought that brought me to this blog to share this morning and here it is…

You didn’t have to, but You did.

As I was walking I was praying the daily prayer from John and Stasi Eldredge’s ministry app, Ransomed Heart. I try to pray it daily but sometimes I don’t get to it. It is a rather lengthy prayer so I don’t get to it every day, but most days. It is giving all of me to Him in gratitude and love, that’s the essence, and when I skip that step of my morning things do not seem to go as peacefully. As I was praying I had a vision of Jesus on the cross and my heart spoke to Him those words, “You didn’t have to, but You did!”. He allowed the people He created to beat Him beyond recognition and hang Him on a cross. My heart reached out and thanked Him in that moment and to my surprise, He took me to our home in my imagination. He didn’t have to replace what we lost seven years ago, He didn’t. We made bad choices that led us to that place and our home was not set up in His order, which I have learned is very important! He didn’t have to give us back our home and cars and travel, but He did! He loves us so much that He did!

“For God so [greatly] loved and dearly prized the world, the He [even] gave His [One and] only begotten Son, so that whoever believes and trusts in Him [as Savior] shall not perish, but have eternal life.” John 3:16 AMP

Today, I encourage you to look back and see what Jesus has done for you. Where were you 10 years ago, 5, 1? He has not left us and He is not punishing us for bad choices, He loves us and wants all good things for us. The first time we had these things it was definitely by the sweat of our brow. This time it is by the grace and mercy of our Lord and we give Him the praise for every bit of it. As I look up, before the window is an easel. I just set the easel up this morning. I have never painted anything significant in my life but all of a sudden I got a hankering and thought I would give it a go. I want to spend time looking back and seeing where God has brought me, it seems to me that is what Paul is referring to in Philipians 4 when he tells us what to think on. When we create we take the time to be still with our thoughts and so this will be my attempt to spend more time in reflection of God’s goodness in my life. I hope you will take a minute today and remember God’s goodness in your life. He loves you dearly! God bless and have a great rest of your week!