New Years Year in review.......

As the year of 2006 comes to a close I am forced to review and analyze....... ok not forced but it is the DeGroff way... I mean we have all been groomed to write down our goals and go full force until we accomplish them.... this is a good thing. But as I review this last year I am thinking that the lesson I have learned more then any is that we can do nothing in ourselves and when we try we will fail so that the Lord can teach us. Joy is something the world does not understand or give...... Praise the Lord for being a restorer and life giver. For being a refiner that is willing to patiently work with us until we look more and more like our precious Savior......

I was at work yesterday and there is really no time to be more real then when someone is facing .....
what came to mind is that most people die as they have lived. You do not change that much at the end..... But the Lord can change you from being to being alive. Is this not good news??? When we come to the end of our time here on earth we are going home.... Our life is just getting better.... I thought of this little lady that was very restless and having a hard time. The nurses had given her alot of medicine and could not get her to rest. When I came on and I was getting report they were telling me they had tried everything.... she could not rest.
I started the shift and went on rounds. When I entered her room there was an old tattered bible laying there. I asked her if she wanted her glasses and a light on. She looked at me with these desperate eyes and said I can not read anymore but could you read to me. Please start at Psalm 23. I sat at her bedside and began reading. After several Psalms I prayed with her and she took my hands and said I knew you believed in Him too.
She was calm the rest of the day and passed away that night. She needed God's word to carry her through. It is the food as believers we need to carry us through. To grow us up and like young children need reminded of our love for them we need reminded that we are never alone as well.

Through loss, heart ache, trials, growth, joys, ups, downs, and everywhere in between the one thing that remains and is always there is the Lord......

Thank you Lord Jesus for making beauty out of ashes and for loving me enough to refine me....
purify me... and then use me...

The lights go out all around me,
one last candle to keep out the night, then the darkness surrounds me, I know I am alive but I feel like I have died.
And all that is left is to except that it is over, my dreams ran like sand through the fists that I made. I try to keep warm but I just grow colder, I feel like I am slipping away.

Chorus:
After all this has passed I will still remain.
after I've cried my last they'll be beauty from pain
though it won't be today someday I will hope again there will be beauty from pain.
You will bring beauty from my pain.

My whole world is the pain inside me. The best I can do is get through the day. My life before is just a memory.
I wonder why God lets me walk through this place. And though I can't understand why this happened I know I will when I look back someday
and see how you have brought beauty from ashes and made me as gold purified through these flames

Chorus

Here I am at the end of me
trying to hold to what I can't see
I forgot how to hope
this night has been so long
I cling to your promise there will be a dawn

chorus

This song really explains the last year.....
I am so utterly thankful that the Lord and His word are our light and that my path, plans and hopes are all in His plan and that His hopes and dreams are so much better then ours could ever be. Praise the Lord for bringing us through valleys and setting our feet in a place that shows us how far He has brought me and all is understood now that we are on this side of it.....

Malachi 3:3