A steadfast spirit and finding joy

Last Sunday evening, September 11, my husband had opened up his Bible looking for some answers to a situation he was dealing with , and one of the verses that just jumped out at him was Psalm 51:10 - Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
That seemed really familiar to me, more so than just having read through it in the last couple years, so I grabbed one of my journals where I've been chronicling the Abigail journey.  While I didn't see anything there, it fell open to an entry dated 9/11 .  . . . . looking on the page before, from 2006, when I was newly pregnant with my son.

And ...... you guessed it, there at the very top of the page was Psalm 51:10, along with my prayer for God to create a steadfast spirit within me.  Exactly five years earlier, the same verse!

And that's not all.  On the facing page, there's a short list, which is not labelled, so I'm not sure if it came from a book, my own writing, or what exactly, but it reads:

Joy is . . .
- knowing that it's not all up to me
- knowing that God has it all together
- knowing that He can mend our broken pieces
- knowing that this life, however beautiful and terrible, is only a stage
- knowing that a future more wonderful than we can imagine awaits
So I grabbed my big Bible to see if I'd jotted down the part about Psalm 51:10 there from five years ago.  And don't even get that far.  Because there inside the front cover, on one of my post-it notes of verses and dates, it reads:

9/11/06
Psalm 40:1-3

Yes, the Abigail verse was part of that day too!  God has been so faithful in giving confirmation of this journey through His word, in ways that have been in process for many years.


This whole week, joy has been a recurring theme in so many places.  And not always easy joy .  . .  but joy in the midst of hard circumstances, the joy that comes only from God and His redeeming work.

Hebrews 12:2
. . . fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.


PS:  A week later, I just ran across a page in my journal from the very beginning of 2011.  On January 5, Psalm 51:10 was my prayer.  Thank you, Lord, for the way you are using specific verses to build my faith on this journey!