Resting

Over the weekend I went to the beach with my best girlfriends.  We call ourselves "accountability sisters".  We had a wonderful time.  We ate, shopped, laughed, cried, stayed up late... all the fun things girls do when they are together.  Five of us decided to take a new lady with us to help her out and to minister to her during a pretty horrible time in her life.  Her daughter recently passed away.  She was only 16 and was her only child.  She has just been devastated.  Her daughter had a life long lung ailment and had a transplant in February of 2011.  It took wonderfully but the lungs had a virus that was not diagnosed and it destroyed the new lungs in this frail little body.  They turned everything off and watched their baby slip into the arms of Jesus.  How hard.  The parents have done remarkable.  They have talked with other parents who are waiting transplants and have needs that no other parents can help.  I know I can't.  Each time we get together one of us has a devotional for the rest of the group.  This time was my turn.  I decided after much prayer and thought that I would go with rest.  I really poured my heart into looking through the old and new testaments for passages on rest.  We all learned how much God desires for us to rest.  Rest in Him, rest our bodies, our minds and have what Jesus says in Matthew "soul-rest".  This is where we give him our burdens for His yoke.  Not put my yoke on Him but nestle up under His and let Him have all my burdens.  His burden is light.  We learned from Zephaniah that the Lord wants to sing over me and He delights in doing so.  We learned that God wants me to have sleep that is pleasant according to His word in Jeremiah.  I get so busy.  Busy doing this, that, and busy doing nothing.  It is okay to say no to a task or a request.  I am learning that ever so slowly.  God wants me to rest.  So that I can reflect on what He wants from me and for me.  All of us had requests for prayer but most of them centered around being scattered and pressed upon and just so stressed.  My dear friend Sherry said we feel this way because this world is not our home.  It isn't.  And the closer I grow to God the more alien I will feel here on this planet.  

Here are a few pictures from our weekend 

This is the six of us at California Dreaming.  A great restaurant.  Starting on the left in the blue shirt is Sherry, me, Sandra, and across from her is Angie, Kelley and our new sweet sister Tamara in the purple.

The first morning.  How beautiful it was to watch that sun rise over the Atlantic.  God is just amazing.

This is an interesting jellyfish that was washed up.  There were dozens all over the sand.  Eeewwww!!

The beach in the fall is just so clear and blue!  You never, ever see Myrtle Beach this secluded.  Normally it is wall-to-wall with people.

Morning number two.  Unbelievable sunrise.  The sky was just so pretty that I I could not stop watching the colors change.

Our little group on our last day before we left out for home.  We had a wonderful time.  I hope we get to go again really soon.