Joy comes in the morning!

Onto the next post and an experience I want my family to remember. I ended Thanksgiving weekend with another terrible nightmare which evidently I carried into the next near sleepless night.  The nightmare stemmed from the painful season I'm in and the enemy decided to not let me rest.  It was shear torment! Much of the second night I spent praying and a breakthrough came when the Lord said "Psalm 30" out of the blue.  I knew it was my answer and I am telling you, it was like the words of the page were fresh like I've had never seen them before and they answered every prayer and question I had been wrestling with that night.  I write this today as a record for the future. Here is Psalm 30:

¹ I will exalt you, LORD, 

   for you lifted me out of the depths 

   and did not let my enemies gloat over me. 

² LORD my God, I called to you for help, 

   and you healed me. 

³ You, LORD, brought me up from the realm of the dead; 

   you spared me from going down to the pit.

 ⁴ Sing the praises of the LORD, you his faithful people; 

   praise his holy name. 

⁵ For his anger lasts only a moment, 

   but his favor lasts a lifetime; 

weeping may stay for the night, 

   but rejoicing comes in the morning.

 ⁶ When I felt secure, I said, 

   “I will never be shaken.” 

⁷ LORD, when you favored me, 

   you made my royal mountain stand firm; 

but when you hid your face, 

   I was dismayed.

 ⁸ To you, LORD, I called; 

   to the Lord I cried for mercy: 

⁹ “What is gained if I am silenced, 

   if I go down to the pit? 

Will the dust praise you? 

   Will it proclaim your faithfulness? 

¹⁰ Hear, LORD, and be merciful to me; 

   LORD, be my help.”

 ¹¹ You turned my wailing into dancing; 

   you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, 

¹² that my heart may sing your praises and not be silent. 

   LORD my God, I will praise you forever.

To be totally candid - It's really, really hard to give a sacrifice of praise when it involves music now. I don't touch the piano or pursue being a part of any music ministry, let alone sing unless it is in church. Even then, I can't get through it without tears. I know, I know...worship is not just singing.  I've just allowed the worship (that easily flowed from this type of expression from a lifetime of expressing it this way) to be silent.  I needed to hear that the Lord would "remove my sackcloth and clothe me with joy" so I can sing to Him again.  I can't do this and so the Lord will have to help me get there. This past Sunday, I heard a very meaningful choir song to me (during worship) and just totally broke down, making a spectacle out of myself.  I can't "lose my praise" as one wise woman reminded me a couple months back.

One of our pastors made this statement a couple weeks back - "Take hold of what God has for you, stretching out with your all, out of your comfort zone.  Where there is stretching (like the man with the withered hand that was healed), God will not be held back by anything. Barriers are breaking and God will break the limitations of your life. Satan does not want you to know that if you stretch you can have what God has for you.  Time to start walking and talking and stop complaining to get out of the wilderness and inherit all that God has for you.  No weapon formed against you will prosper." And this passage in Isaiah 54:2-3   "Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes. For you will spread out to the right and to the left; your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities."