Debby, when you were describing your daughter, it could have been you describing yourself! It is obvious to me where she gets her sunny disposition and her faith. Thank God you accepted the challenge and took her into your life as your own. You probably saved each other, right? I know my own children are the biggest blessings in my life...hands down. I didn't adopt them but they came from various challenging circumstances and they have thrived and love me back so much. Did you know I have on who is now 50??? I had him when I was 17 years old. Happy birthday to Jennifer! Hug, Linda.
Oh, Debby, we praise the Lord with you...and "Oh, magnify the Lord with us and let us exalt His name together"... my heart is bursting forth with this song. We praise Him that He has worked to develop repentance in your loved one! "How great the Father's love for us..."
Songs really DO minister to our entire beings, don't they?
When challenging younger people with concern about the lyrics of some songs, I always found it sadly amusing (an oxymoron?) that they would say the words don't affect them. But we ARE deeply affected by words...as you've indicated in your entry here. SO often in my own life the words and melody of a hymn or spiritual song just floats to the surface in my mind and spirit. Interesting.
The way God brings passages of Scripture to you to nourish, comfort, challenge you is quite amazing to me! And I praise Him for that!
We'll count on God's ongoing comfort and challenge as you move from day to day, sometimes from minute to minute. "I will trust and not be afraid." (“Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the LORD GOD is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.” Isaiah 12:2 ESV)
This reminds me of an anecdote - when my nephew was probably 2-3 years old. (He was born in 1961.) On the way to a family reunion in Maryland, the family was going across a bridge with a very high arched structure above the road. The little guy was on his mother's lap (before the days of seatbelts and booster seats.) As they came closer and closer to this impressive bridge in St. George, Delaware, he burst out in a song he had learned in Sunday School, "I will trust, I will trust, I will trust and not be afraid...." It turns out he had thought the family car was climbing that bridge's superstructure and had to go way into the sky!! Yes, what we focus on makes a BIG difference! Full trust - like that of a little child - must bring delight to our Father's BIG heart!!