Rejoice in the Lord ALWAYS - Guest Post

One of my favorite questions to ask people is "What has God been teaching you lately?"  Savories for the Soul is a page dedicated to sharing what God has been revealing to me and others who desire to know God and make Him and His loving, faithfulness known.

I encourage guests to share their own experiences and truths that God is showing to them.  If you would like to submit an entry of a devotional, revelation, or a scripture God has laid on your heart please send to seasontheday@gmail.com.  With your entry be sure to include a short bio, photo and link to your website (if you have one).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is a post written by my friend Jenilee, God has been revealing some great things to her. She is wife to Thomas, mom to Jasper her beautiful baby boy, and daughter of the King, Jesus Christ.  The Lord has been working in her family in such a great way and she shares with us what God has been doing. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A very wise lady in my church told me a story, when I called her seeking counsel and sharing some of my family’s current trials. She had prayed for her mother to find Christ for years, but it was her children that brought their grandma to Christ. This story really resonated with me, as I have been praying for my father since I was a little girl and we were praying for so many other relatives, and at the time I was nearing the end of my pregnancy of Tom and I’s first child.

Jasper Thomas Forst entered this world with a bang on March 15th, 2012! Yep, he is his mother’s son! I prayed so hard that this child would help us to bring other’s to Christ, back to God, anything and everything. Let this child help us to unite as a family with all our relatives. I knew his first big chance was before he could even speak. It was his baby dedication. If we could just get people to come, we could plant some seeds, water some seeds, and maybe, see them grow! And wow, was God already working through this child. Before the dedication even happened, we had a relative show up at church all on her own! What a blessing and surprise. I saw God working through my family.

I was overjoyed, then a setback happened with my father and I was pretty devastated. But God knew the future and he had set me up to endure this heartache. The week before in our couple’s small group someone had said a phrase that stuck with me, “Just remember if you are doing the right thing, living the right way, and raising your family with God, the devil is going to come after you.” That resonated in my head all week as I was trying to move past the hurt. I also leaned on the scripture Phil 4:4a Rejoice in the Lord always; and again I say rejoice! Pastor Jim preached a sermon on Philippians 4 on September 16, 2007 and I still listen to it all the time. If you haven’t heard it, check it out on hissalt.net It’s one of my favorite and for about 5 years now, I’ve listened to it over and over and over. Some parts of the day I wasn’t sure what I was rejoicing for, but I was going to rejoice in my Lord! I also had a group of sweet ladies praying for me and sending me scripture and that was helping me rejoice and recover, as well.

The baby dedication was on Mother’s day and what a blessing to have it on my FIRST Mother’s day. We had over 30 people in attendance for Jasper’s dedication. Some people I dragged over from Faith, lots of family, friends, and even my grandma all the way from Arizona. It was truly amazing. Oh, was this little boy of mine doing some great work and he didn’t even know it! And truly I didn’t even know it. I didn’t know what the impact had been until last week.

My best friend had been going through some struggles. We had grown up in church together, but he hadn’t been attending. I’d been trying to get him to go to church with us for over a year and it just hadn’t happened. Well, he came for my little pumpkin! Then he went again on Tuesday night, Thursday night, Sunday, and he’ll be attending with us again this upcoming Wednesday night! That’s right even though he hasn’t quite told me, I can tell he has rededicated his life to the Lord and is really making some great personal strides. It’s truly amazing. God has done what I asked! He is working His will through my little 2 month old baby boy!

(Oh, and update on my father, while we were standing up in the front for the dedication, Tom pointed out to a man in the corner. Yep, you guessed it, my father. Not sure how long he was there or how long he stayed, as he didn’t talk to us afterwards, but God’s still working.) a dear friend sent to me to share with my readers.  I know you will enjoy it as much as I did.