Journal of Faith: Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling Philippians 2:12

The life of many people now has become so busy with work, home, and other obligations that the prospect of carrying on any good relationships doesn't look possible.  What happens when the relationship you are trying to nurture is your relationship with God? Many people find church to be a good place to cultivate that relationship, but I am pretty sure that the Bible says we are suppose to work out our own salvation.  What I am saying is that church can encourage us to build on our relationship with God, but church itself is not our full relationship with God.  We need personal time with him.  I need personal time with him,  but where in the world is this time going to come from? I already feel bad for being away from my son so much, I work more than I ever wanted to, and I need to be there for my family.  I rush home from work trying to make it to church sometimes, and I feel like I never get enough sleep. From the human perspective I don't have time for Go...

So the other day I was feeling kind of down because I am tired of living the single mother life.  We all know it's not going to be easy, but some days it just seems like everything is just too hard.  On top of that I was getting to see, at very close proximity, how everyone else in my family was getting help for different things from their husbands or wives to the point that I was even more sad about my situation.  The most recent event was my sister-in-law having her BEAUTIFUL  baby girl on Monday.  Their family looks so beautiful and complete.  It is wonderful to look at them except that it reminds me how my family isn't complete.  I got sad and then I got angry at my son's dad again, then I got mad at myself for being sad.  It was not a great day for me on Tuesday.  Thank God this wasn't the end of the story. On Wednesday,as I was cleaning in preparation for the baby coming home, the Lord showed me something about ...

 I am burdened for people to know that I love them, my family, my friends,and people that I don't even really know.  Do they understand how special they are? Do they feel loved?  Do they see that they matter to me?  Do they know that I am not playing a role, that I seriously love them?  I can see now how sometimes I have craved to receive love and so I gave it with a tag line of  "love me back please."  When I wouldn't get the response I thought I should get it grieved my heart.  I felt bad that they didn't accept that love of God that I had for them, but I also felt like I was unloved and rejected by the world. I believe that the feelings of grief and rejection weren't (and aren't) just my heart but a manifestation of the spirit of God within me.  God loves the world and they reject him all the time even though he gave his own son to die for them. It grieves him that people don't accept his love for them.  ...