God is Smiling at You

"The LORD bless you
and keep you;
the LORD make his face shine upon you
and be gracious to you;
the LORD turn his face toward you
and give you peace." Numbers 6:24-26

For our five year anniversary Chad and I took a trip to Kauai, Hawaii. It was our second trip to the beautiful islands of Hawaii and I wanted to make it really special. I decided that I wanted to surprise him and renew our vows on the beach while we were there. Our wedding had been planned so quickly and there were so many people threre. Plus we had both found Jesus since our wedding. I thought it would be really special to say our vows again, just the two of us, rededicating our marriage to God.

It ended up being a not so nice day. It rained off and on and it was a little bit gloomy. We went down to the beach and started the ceremony. Just Chad, me, the lady officiating the vow renewal and a photographer. She started the ceremony and we went through our vows. She had asked ahead of time if I would like her to include some scripture in the renewal. I told her I did, but I didn't give her any guidance as to what scripture to include.

The sun had been hiding behind the clouds most of the day. When she started her scripture she said, "May the Lord bless you and keep you; may the Lord make his face shine upon you."

As soon as she said those words, the sun came out from above the mountain and God smiled at us. I will never ever forget that moment. If you haven't read our story, I shared a little bit of it here. We had a rocky start. Jesus was not the center of our marriage in the beginning. As we renewed our commitment to each other and most importantly to God, he made sure we knew he was listening.

Yesterday my good friend, Mike, our associate pastor, finished up a sermon series on these three verses in Numbers. It really spoke to me. Just a little summary for you. . .

God wants to bless us,
God wants to keep us,
God is smiling at us when no one else is,
God shows us grace, even when we do not deserve it,
God is attentive to us,
And God gives us peace.

Mike said, "If you do not find peace from God, you need to go back and start reading the verses from the beginning."

I am sharing this post today to encourage all of you. God is always here. Always. He loves us when it feels like no one else does. He loves us even when we mess up. God is smiling at you today.

There is a fabulous new website called (in)Courage that launched today. There are 20 wonderful women contributing to this site. I (in)Courage you to check it out!