A Present For Me Today...

Little Man loves presents. This past birthday and Christmas (Dec. 20, Dec. 25) he learned very quickly that when someone handed him a wrapped object, that he could open it, and what was inside was for him! Over the last month, he has continued to love this activity, which his big sister has turned into a regular game! She "wraps" toys up in blankets, and he opens them. Recently he has begun to give gifts as well. He comes up to me and says "here mamma, a pesent!" It can be whatever he has been playing with, something from the opened dish washer, or my own shoe. But the look on his face is so precious when he looks up at me to receive my reaction. Today he handed me a book from my book shelf. It is a daily devotional entitled "The Promises of God". It is an old book, published in 1956. It belonged to my grandmother. When I took the "pesent" and said a big hearty thank you and smiled at Little Man, it fell open to a devotion for August 10. I wasn't doing anything, so I absent-mindedly began to read. I want to share with you that devotion. I am still in awe of how God works, each and every day. And having this book placed in my hands, and falling open to that devotion was no exception. Here is what I read:

"No matter how things seem to us, God knows what He is doing. He knows what He has in mind. He knows that His thoughts toward us are good, and not evil, to give us a happy future. This is His expectation, and it should be ours. He is planning for it all the time. Things may be going hard, but remember---'Behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own.' --James Russell Lowell. And he has promised with every trial to make a way of escape (1 Cor. 10:13). He has promised never to leave us, nor forsake us (Heb. 13:5). God's thoughts follow us all the time, and we are to have faith that God's tomorrow will be better than today. His thoughts toward us are thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give us a happy future, and expected end."
The verse that accompanied this devotion is "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope." Jer. 29:11. There is a meditation prayer at the end and it reads: "I am poor and needy; yet the Lord thinketh upon me; thou art my help and my deliverer; make no tarrying, O my God". This is taken from Ps. 40:17.
Wow! Right now, as we speak, the DiSH is in the middle of a job interview. I don't even know what to say. I guess there really isn't anything left to say, is there?!
I love presents too. And am so thankful for the greatest Gift I have been, and ever will be, given.