A Belated Birthday and ThankYou

The young lady pictured with me here had a birthday yesterday, and I intended to send her this message, but my screen time got interrupted, and that didn’t happen. So I’ll tell her today, and you may as well hear this too. When you’re done reading, is there someone to whom you owe a belated birthday greeting or thank you?

Happy (belated) Birthday, Dawn!

I’ve been meaning to thank you for that session you lead during the 2019 mission trip to Hawaii—the one where you introduced a plan for reading the Bible. I know you didn’t create the plan, but you’d been living it. And that was clear. I thought about starting on January 1 of 2020, but then decided to do my own thing. It took me 18 months to get through the entire Bible, but I did, and that was a fruitful 18 months.

 Midway through 2021, I started over, in Genesis, and was doing fairly well, but got discouraged because I saw that I wouldn’t finish in six short months. Plus, I had let a lot of worry creep into my thoughts. My worry became anguish, the kind of anguish I hadn’t felt since my 1^st husband took his own life over 35 years ago.

COVID didn’t help, but my anguish had little or nothing to do with that sort of virus.

Looking back at the last half of 2021, I was experiencing depression. There’ve been times when circumstances have dumped me into a depressed state, and then abandoned me there for a while. That’s probably happened to you as well. I fight and shake off the crap. But it’s the Lord who eventually lifts me up and opens the blinds. I get a good whiff of fresh air (nearly always in the form of scripture or song) and I’m on track again.

This past December, however, my spirit had been down so long that hopelessness threatened. I began to identify with friends who suffer from chronic depression in a way that I’d never been able to do before. Funny thing: One of them didn’t know it, but she was ministering to me as she labeled, even alphabetized, her struggle with anxiety and depression, then posted it online. I hope she’s better for that exercise! I know I am.

Hang with me. I’m close to the reason why I need to thank you!

My son and his family sent me a new Bible and a journal for Christmas. Guess what?! The Bible has a plan laid out for reading it though in a year. The SOAP plan!! And the journal … it’s got all the standard blank lines. Each turn of the page represents a new day and has these headings: Scripture – Observations – Applications – Prayer.

It was all I could do to wait until the New Year to start. But I did.

Dawn, it isn’t you who speaks to me every day. It isn’t you who lifted me from depression and gives me hope. It isn’t you who urges me to stick to a purpose and think on lovely things. But it was you who planted the seed.

Thank you, Dawn. The SOAP you told me about has been good for my body, heart and soul.

I think there might be sandy beaches in Heaven, like the one we enjoyed in Hawaii. And the pedicures will be free. If not, we’re taking some great memories with us.

So glad God gave you another birthday, friend.

Rita