Happy Valentine’s Day!!

Happy Valentine’s Day!!  

First of all, I encourage you to treat yourself to some flowers and chocolate if you are not expecting any deliveries today.  I did!  

Enjoy this box of Chocolates!  

In the past few weeks I have been feeling a nudge.  No, it is more of a wooing, a drawing, an encouragement to set my focus on the Love of God.  Not a striving focus, but sinking into a relaxing, yummy bath topped with rose petals kind of submission.  Relinquishing my barriers and control to His extravagant love for me, and enlarging my heart to love Him more than I ever have before.  

I felt that God was inviting with His still, small voice, “Take a break from looking for Mr. Tall-Dark-and-Handsome, and let Me fill you with more of My Love for you.  As your eyes gaze into Mine, you will be saturated with My perfect Love, and surrounded by My Favor.  Mr. Tall-Dark-and-Handsome will find you!”  

On Sunday, I believe God spoke again through my new friend Lynette when she said, “God is grounding you [before releasing the blessings.]”   It was a phrase that has not departed from my mind, and I immediately thought of Ephesians 3:17, that we are to be “rooted and grounded in love.”  God’s Love!  

Yesterday was the beginning of Lent, and I’ve been thinking about the blog my niece Elizabeth began 6 years ago (Long To Love - please take a look at her very first post!)  It is my aim, for the next 6 weeks in preparation for Easter, to indulge myself in the multifaceted Love of God, to be rooted and grounded in His Love, and “to pray to love the Lord your God more than you pray to breathe your next breath.”  (The advice Beth Moore gave to Elizabeth!  Read the story is in her blog post above.) 

This Valentine’s Day, and for the next few weeks, I invite you to pray and declare Ephesians 3 with me, as I pray for you, and for the many people longing for romantic love in a Kingdom Marriage:  

“My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. 

I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. 

And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love (rooted and grounded in LOVE!), you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. 

Reach out and experience the breadth! 

Test its length! 

Plumb the depths! 

Rise to the heights! 

Live full lives, full in the fullness of God. 

God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.”    Ephesians 3:14-20, The Message

AMEN!  

Expecting to be amazed ~

Barbara

© Barbara Nelson – 2013

William and Megan, and the testimony of answered prayer!

William and Megan 

and the testimony of answered prayer!

William and Megan - Married January 19, 2013

William is a friend of mine who has been diligently praying with "1 + 1 = One" since the beginning.  He was so encouraged to know that there were women all over the world praying for Christian men, and praying for Kingdom marriages.  This is his testimony:  

"After many years of divorce and being a single-Dad, there were a lot of times I had given up hope of finding that special woman that would open my heart to a future marriage.  There were many days where it was just difficult to see the future, and fully trust God with the present...
I have just been blown away by the woman God had for me all along.  Her story is so wonderful, about the difficult waiting she went through as well, and how gradually it became so clear that we were just meant to be a couple.  It has been romantic, and easy, and so close... and has just felt the incredible presence of God through the entire relationship.  So worth waiting for!
 
What is so nice is how many prayers I have prayed for her over the last few years, and how many she had been praying for me, and how all of this waiting had a story and a purpose all along.  But, isn't that what we should just naturally expect from such a loving and caring God?   I so often forgot, or just didn't trust enough that God had my story all taken care of, and all I had to do was to listen and follow.  But, my own broken heart from past relationships, expectations, failures, and rejections had just hardened my heart to that side of God that it took some VERY tough love to breakthrough.
 
But, I'm SO glad He did!  As we are looking toward our wedding day, and thinking about this person who I'm starting to be with as the partner for this next chapter of my life, I'm so thankful.  I am so grateful for the friends (both men and women) who have stood beside me and encouraged me, and for the many people praying.  The men and women on this list and others who have been so faithfully praying for Christian marriage.  Thank you!
Thank you God for answering my prayers, and the prayers of all my friends and family and the Kingdom Marriage network!   
This time last year, I was limping along lonely, broken, and almost BANKRUPT.  Now, I need to build bigger store houses!!!
 
AMAZING!!!"

William and Megan have a testimony!  And from their testimony, we can have hope for our future.  

Kris Valloton, in his message called "HOPE, the Divine X-Factor", says this:  

"What do I do when I feel hopeless about a situation?  I pretend it is not happening and ignore it; I don’t do anything with it.  But to restore hope, look at Lamentations 3:21, 'This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope.'  

'I remember what God did for me' is a prophetic declaration about what He will do next time.   

Faith and Hope and Testimonies are a corporate garden...  To have a testimony, you must go through the test.  A testimony is when I have gone through a test and God came through.   

In Revelation it says that the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.   

Therefore, whatever He did for you, He will do for me, because God is no respecter of persons.  So I can remember what God did for me, or I can take what God did for you and take it as a prophecy for me.  
It is history for you, and it is prophecy for me!"  

Allow the testimony from William and Megan give you hope for today.  I don’t yet know Megan’s story yet, but I watched as God pulled William up from a desperate, desolate place, restored his career, and brought his wife to him.  Their testimony, and the other testimonies from this past year, are a prophecy for YOU!  

You might be in the test, but God will come through for you, and and He will come through for the person He has chosen as your Kingdom Marriage partner.  Remember, that other person is in the test right now too, so pray for your spouse (future or current), as William and Megan prayed for each other years before they ever met.  

My prayer for you:  

“May the God of your HOPE so fill you with all joy and peace in believing [through the experience of your faith] that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound and be overflowing (bubbling over) with hope!”  (Romans 15:13 Amplified) 

Pray this for yourself:  

Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this:
The faithful love of the LORD never ends!  
His Mercies never cease.
Great is his faithfulness; 
His mercies begin afresh each morning.
I say to myself, ‘The LORD is my inheritance;
Therefore, I will HOPE in Him!’
The LORD is good to those who depend on him,
to those who search for Him.”  (Lamentations 3:21-25 NLV)

Be encouraged!  Speak to your soul and declare that you will hope in God, because great is His faithfulness! and expect to be amazed, just as William and Megan have been amazed at God’s goodness and faithfulness!  

AMEN!  

Expecting to be amazed ~

Barbara

© Barbara Nelson – 2013