I've posted about the Tenth Avenue North song "By Your Side" previously (1st By Your Side post) but God has been really laying it on my heart to write again but in a different way. Previously I was more looking at the first verse of the song rather than the chorus. Now the chorus is really stuck in my head... day after day.

CHORUS:
And I'll be by your side
Wherever you fall
In the dead of night
Whenever you call
And please don't fight
These hands that are holding you
My hands are holding you

Confession: I have been having a terrible time sleeping lately. I know there are many reasons why this could be happening from depression to anxiety to stress to hormones and beyond. It is probably mostly stress but still... it's really hard when you've moved back into insomnia and it won't release you for one full 8-hour peacefulness. I have been fighting it and it keeps winning. One morning the radio woke me up with By Your Side playing and when I couldn't get it out of my head, I found it on YouTube and played it again. Then I turned on Pandora and typed in Tenth Avenue North and it was the first thing that came up. This morning when I turned on Pandora, By Your Side started playing again... and then again tonight, after an incredible Bible Study, I turned on my radio in my car and guess what was playing... yup, By Your Side. This song keeps coming out of nowhere and it's not the first verse, as I said, this time. It's that chorus. The words that stand out are 'please don't fight these hands that are holding you.' His hands are holding me. He has 'hemmed' me in.

This evening in Bible Study we did the Lectio Divina (divine reading) with Psalm 139. I must make another confession, I do not sit still very well nor can I focus on one task at a time normally. The first time she read this passage the words that stood out to me were 'hemmed me in' and 'anxious thoughts'. I started meditating on anxious thoughts. I then heard 'fearfully and wonderfully made' and kept thinking of those three phrases. The last time, I really listened to the whole passage and found myself amazed that God really knew me and knew EVERY day that I had - every miniscule thing that I did. He knew how badly I'd mess up in life and still, He created me. He knew that I would fall away from Him time and time again but STILL created me. He allowed me to be on this earth and now that I really truly see that with honestly open eyes, I want to make sure the rest of my life blesses Him as much as He has allowed me the right to walk this earth.

He is by my side wherever I am. He knows when I get up and when I lay down. He knows my words before I even THINK them. As much as I strive for something great, I can never even understand who He is. I will never 'get it'. He is with me no matter where I am, what I am doing, who I am with, what I am thinking or speaking. He is there. He loves me that much.

One of the women in the study said: "All of us want someone to understand us and to love us... how incredible that He knows us inside and out and still loves us!" He is with us throughout every day, even when we do bad things. It says "If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I go to hell, you are there." I don't think I ever thought of that. He is wherever we go. We're told this as children to shame us into not doing anything bad but as we grow older, we realize that it's a comfort not something to be ashamed of. He knows all the things we do and loves us anyway. We can't always say that about ourselves or those who love us. We find out that someone has done bad things and cast judgment on them. We hurt other people and they stop loving us.

This has really shown me that if a God who knows EVERYTHING about us can love us, why... WHY can't we just love other people without judgment, blame, hatred or anger? Why do we feel that we can judge others when the God that is by our sides at all times doesn't judge us? It goes back to removing the plank from our own eye before helping someone else with the sawdust in theirs. Do we have any right to do that when we are just as much to blame for private sins? Nothing is private to God. It's always scared me but now I need to learn that it's really a comfort. He loves us enough to 'hem us in' on all sides. He loves us enough to be with us in hell and sing praises with us in heaven.

He is God. He is God alone. Let's just start being human and let God take care of judgment. Love as He loves and live as He has asked.

Devotions are something that have always made me groan. The thought of sitting down every day for 30 minutes and reading my Bible makes my brain hurt for some reason. I have protested for years since I felt like I had no time although I always had time to do things that weren't 'devotional'. Now that I'm getting older, I realized that I really needed to start reading my Bible and listening for God's voice. I found a book called Devotions for Women on the Go back in March and have been studying my way through it. It was written just for me since 5 minutes seems to be about all my attention span allows for. This book seems to have been written with the knowledge that I would need exactly what it said on the day that I read it. I'll admit, God is amazingly detail-oriented. I am shocked every time I open the book to see that the verses and the little story relate to whatever it is that I need that day. The last few days have been plainly shocking yet typical.

PRAYER: July 10 was about Praying to Win - praying for those who mistreat you, for the strength not to fall into temptation, not to make mistakes, for a wonderful future, to be strengthened, to share the gospel, to be worthy of your calling, to be generous, to have a clear conscience and to confess your sins among other things. As much as I try to sit and pray, the things that leave my mouth are usually "Lord, help me be the woman You want me to be. Give me strength and courage. Allow my business to grow." Mostly 'give me, help me, allow me, do this for me' stuff. Instead this devotional told me that I need to pray for others, pray for His help to keep me from doing things He's asked me not to, pray for His forgiveness and for the forgiveness of others, pray that I might be generous in my words, thoughts and gifts, pray that I might live up to His calling for me... There's an Addison Road song 'What Do I Know of Holy' that says:

I made You promises a thousand times
I tried to hear from Heaven
But I talked the whole time

This has always been a problem. I have always wanted to know what it felt like to really 'hear God'. My friend Michele hears things from Him all the time - clearly too - and I'm not sure I can ever say that I heard anything. It's not because He hasn't been speaking, it's just because I haven't been listening. Next time I sit down to pray, I need to just soak and quiet my mind so I can hear what He has to say. Give myself over to Him and receive His forgiveness. Pray to win.

PREOCCUPATION: July 11 spoke of Preparing for the Attack on us. Whenever we start putting all of our faith in God and giving ourselves over to His love, we are at our most vulnerable to attack. It spoke of starting a new business as one of the times this can happen which fits me extremely well. They talked about physical setbacks, technical setbacks, preoccupation and heaviness of heart as things that can be attacks on what we are striving for.

Preoccupation stuck out to me. My pastor had told me that it would be the best thing for me to take a year off from dating so I could focus on my business because the preoccupation will keep me from accomplishing my goals. Satan is an angel who got off track and his favorite tool is getting us off track with him. I know this to be very true in my life. If I have something to keep me preoccupied, I'll stay with that instead of doing the things I know will help me accomplish my goal.

The heaviness of heart has been something that has really been weighing on me for a few weeks. Normally I am a really glowing, happy, overwhelming person to others and I've had a lot of people ask me 'Is everything ok?' 'You sound sad...' lately. I haven't been able to figure out exactly what it is. I've been going through a lot lately and have been under an insane amount of stress (mostly self-induced) but in the past, I've been able to power through and get through it with a smile on my face. I feel emotionally, physically and spiritually exhausted lately. I know the causes of all of it and know that my 'praying to win' and keeping myself from preoccupation will help me find the glow again. God has the power to life the weight off, I just need to focus on that.

PROVISION: Today (July 13) spoke about Provision and Psalm 37:23-29. Verses 23 and 24 really stuck out to me with the worries I've been starting to feel lately about my business and hiring people. I know in my heart and in my head that I don't need to worry because God will take care of it but these verses really showed me that I need to stand firm in Him.

"If the Lord delights in a man's way,
he makes his steps firm;
though he stumble, he will not fall,
for the Lord upholds him with his hand."

This doesn't say that we will never stumble, even if we stand firm in the Lord but it says that we will not fall. This shows me that when I stand right with God and do as He has asked, He will take care of me and I can't fail. I am an overly ambitious person and always have a million things going on, my goal is to make each of those things a success. There's a great question that people seem to ask all the time "What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail?" With God, I can't fail.

While I'm running and training, I've been repeating Isaiah 40:31: "but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." I know that no matter what it is that I put my mind to, God will hold me up and keep me going. It doesn't say that I won't trip, stumble, or have to slow down but I will never grow wearing, faint or fall down. I cannot fail.

God is good. He is indeed. He knew me and my path before I was born. He knew I would hit bottom and rise up again. He knew it would take a few times for me to fail on my own for me to come crawling to Him asking for Him to help me back up. He's always been there and always will be. I just need to trust that I can hold His hand and keep moving forward and that He'll never let me down.