Day 11

Saturday, December 15, 2018 -

God is good. He is great! He is worthy to be praised. I woke up around 8:15 this morning, fixed a mug (plastic) of coffee – and thanked God there was no line for the microwave. It was the best coffee I’ve had since I’ve been here – maybe I finally got it heated enough. It is a rainy day, and too dark on the upper bunk to read (“J” is still asleep – he was up till almost 2am). So I sat there and just worshipped the Lord and prayed while I drank my coffee. My daughter Victoria emailed me last night, and I didn’t really have any time to answer her, about how discouraged she was, and that this was the most difficult thing she’s gone through. Yet I believe it is drawing her closer to the Lord, which makes it worth it all. I pray for all my children. We, if our life is to be victorious, must surrender every sin, every struggle, every doubt, and every burden and problem to Him. If we try to tackle such things on our own, we will fall flat on our faces. My children need to understand this. Surrendering everything to Him means not putting anything before Him. That is something only the Holy Spirit can help us do. But first, we need to surrender.

I went down this morning and emailed Victoria a response, and hope and pray it was an encouragement through these dark and despairing times for all of us. I also washed some clothes by hand this morning, as I was down to one pair of underwear and nothing to sleep in. At least there is a clothes’ dryer here – but I had to wait in line 2 hours to use it. You can’t buy detergent here, so I used shampoo.

In reading through the first eight chapters of Acts, I realized how those (I haven’t fully studied this) who were persecuted, were either, like me, persecuted for doing the right thing (putting God before man), like Peter and John, or Steven, or accused falsely (also something they did to me). In fact, Jesus Himself was falsely accused of treason. It resulted in His death – but it was all part of God’s perfect plan. Joseph was falsely accused. I would like to do a more thorough study of this.