Approved by Love©

I’ve longed to come here and write.  The silence has not been by my design.  So often words have escaped me.  I feel them lodged inside some place deep.  At times I wonder if they will flow again.  I know that He has made me to communicate.  Anyone who knows me well can confirm this.  Yet this silence that invades me has often left me wondering.  What has happened to me?

To everything there is a season I remind myself.

Summer has ended in these mountains.  The cool, crisp air has replaced the oppressive humidity accompanied by hot temperatures well into the 100’s.  Now I waken with a chill in the air.  There’s something about this change that brings a level of excitement for me.  Cold days hidden inside a warm house snuggled up on the couch with the one I love and a cup of hot tea allures me.  There’s something about the change of one season to another.

As the year winds down I feel the drain of the demand the days have required. To say there has been transitions in my home is an understatement.  It seems as soon as the news came that my husband had lost his job all hell broke loose or maybe it was that heaven came down.

To everything there is a season.

For many years I prided myself on the knowledge I had attained.  I admittedly did 2 Bible studies at a time.  I would study to show myself approved unto God, a workman who does not need to be ashamed.  Every question would be answered, all homework would be accomplished, every meeting attended.

It’s the last thing I care about now.  Knowledge, after all, gets me no where, other than being puffed up.

It’s funny how a season can change your whole world.  Back in the workforce for the first time in 24 years has brought a different place for my life.  I cannot tell you the last time I picked up my Bible to study it.  Yet the God of the book floods into my soul even so.  For it’s not what I do that brings it all about.

I thought about it all today.  For the better part of 30 years I studied hard to show myself approved yet it’s in these days of stillness that I find the approval rooted deep.  I can recall words written in the pages with ease but it’s not my studying of them that has made the difference.  It’s the surety of His love regardless of what I’ve done in a day.

It had to be this way, you know.  I had to go without to see what was within.

It’s not my studies that take me to that place.  It’s the adoration of this God who indwells me.  It’s been a long time coming.

I am the righteousness of Christ even on my worst day.  He has loved me from the moment He first had me in mind.  I have never had anything to prove.

Some days my children have behaved better than other days throughout their lives.  It doesn’t change the facts.  My love is steadfast for them regardless of what they do or don’t do on any given day.  It is the same for me with Him.

This season has had its challenges yet with the challenges have come the resolution.  I won’t give up on the belief that He adores me even on my worst day because He made me to love.

It’s funny to me as I think about it all.  The years I spent studying always left me uncertain.  “Is it enough?”  “Am I approved?”  I never knew the answer.  No matter how much I learned, with the knowledge I attained, I just never knew.

These days of doing nothing have answered the question in ways I never imagined.  Laying down my ruler opened the door to come just as I am into the place where love dwells.

In these months that have passed where pages of those holy words have lain unturned I’ve discovered something brilliant.  I am approved because I am His.

©copyrighted: 2012 Julie L. Todd