I was just driving and thinking about how God's presence has been evident throughout the last 6+ months of my life. He has been so faithful through all of the hard times we've experienced. He provided us with money to pay our bills and buy groceries with while Clayton was out of work. He provided Clayton with a job in the area that he is going to school for. And, consequently, Clayton loves it. He has given me a sense of peace about Clayton being in this line of work rather than being a police officer. I had gotten used to having that patrol car in my front yard. After all, it had been there for 9 years. Two days before he resigned, God told me it is okay by allowing me to drive up into my yard and think "It looks normal without that car there." No matter what happens, He is faithful.

I was listening to the radio this morning and God spoke to me through a story about Shrinky Dinks. The morning host, Heather, found these things for her kids and they made them over the weekend and last night. They put her son's in the oven for it to shrink and while they were watching, it folded over and looked like it wasn't going to do right, so her son wanted them to take them out before it got too badly mangled. Heather, in her wisdom (and knowing what the end result was going to be) told him that they would leave them until time to take them out. How like our God! He allows us to go through bad things, through fire because he knows the end. He knows that when everything is said and done, we will be holy as he is holy. Holiness comes by being tested, by going through the fire. The impurities are burned away and we are left with Jesus in us.

This really resonates deep within me this morning as I have made a commitment to be in God's Word daily - something I struggle with. My prayer is that if I can make it routine to begin with that God will ignite my routine into passion and I will long to be in the Word as often as possible and grow closer and closer to him and more like him and through the fires that will surely come I will be tested and the impurities will burn away and I will see His reflection in all that I do.