"THE LORD IS OUR STRENGTH"

"The sovereign Lord. . . has sent me to. . . Provide for those who grieve in Zion-to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of spirit of despair 

ISAIAH 61:1-3 (KJV) 

  You know you're sad when you're world in the middle of all the color and excitement, and you still feel empty inside. Maybe you feel that way sometime. But when it seems that nothing will cheer you up, turn to Jesus!

   Jesus might not bring you a gift or make a funny face, but He'll make you glad on the inside where it really counts. He can change your perspective, because where He is, there is joy. Ask Jesus to come and cheer up your. Give him your depression your ashes and let Him crown you with beauty. I am glad, and I want you to be glad... not a fake -smile kind of glad, but a deep-down-in-your-heart that kind of glad. Ernest Hemingway once said, "the world breaks everyone, and some get strong in the broken places." In this, he was right. Ours is an imperfect, broken world. Your wife tells you that you were not the father of your son. A doctor breaks the news that you have an inoperable cancer. Your son is arrested for shoplifting. The promotion that you deserved went to a less qualified colleage.

   Everyone is broken eventually, but only some men stronger because of it. "Out of the presses of pain," wrote A. B. Simpson, "come the soul's best wine. The eyes that have shed no rain, can shed but little shine." When amy Carmichael became an invalid, the resilt of a fall, she spent the next 10 years of her life bedridden. She considered those years which she spent immobile some of her best as she wrote, counseled the unending stream of people who came to her, and prayed for India and the world.

   When Amy Carmihael felt the crushing, unexpected blows of blows of life, she turned to God and found solace and strength.To those who suffer, God promised "Beauty for ashes; Joy instead of mourning; Praise instead of heaviness. Gor God has planted them life strong and graceful oaks for his own glory" (Isaiah 61:3). 

   Nothing that happens to you can happen apart from God's knowledge and God's will, and nothing which which life throws at you can carry you beyond His grace and care. God doesn't fix everything, but gives for everything. That can help make you strong in your broken places, the joy of the Lord is our strength!