What Might Have Been

“Baseball is ninety percent mental and the other half is physical.”~~Yogi Berra
(BrainyQuote)

Today’s word of the day is brevity, “the quality of expressing much in few words; terseness.” I’ve never been said to possess that quality.

Today is Chocolate Mousse Day. You can bet if it has the word “chocolate” in it, I will be celebrating.

We had a great time with Rachel and Justin last night. We had dinner at Hoffbrau, and then sat around and chatted at home for a couple hours. Oh, and we watched an episode of Jane the Virgin. We also had some of this delicious strawberry cake that Christi made for the celebration.

This was made from the recipe of a good friend of my mother’s. Thank you, Shirley!!

TODAY’S DEVOTIONAL

(From Praying With the Psalms)

My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.
Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls; all your breakers and your waves have gone over me.
By day the LORD commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.
I say to God, my rock: “Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?”
As with a deadly wound in my bones, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me all the day long, “Where is your God?”
Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.
Psalm 42:6-11

“God is not a surface phenomenon, slight and changeable like moods or weather. He comes to us in the depths, sharing what is most eternal in himself with what is most needful in us.”

“Eternal God, I thank you for getting underneath the surface clamor and frenzy of my life and creating a reality in me that is impervious to oppression, springing up in hope and praising your great name in Jesus Christ. Amen.”

(From My Utmost For His Highest)

“If Thou Hadst Known”

Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.
Luke 19:42

How often are we haunted by things that might have been? How often have doors been closed because we refused to enter into them? These doors are closed permanently. God will not open them again. And he will remind us that we, ourselves, closed them. There is, potentially, great and profound sadness in what might have been. But God can redeem the “might have been,” if we will allow it. We can wallow in the regret of what might have been, or we can let God use it in our lives to open other doors. “Never be afraid when God brings back the past. Let memory have its way. It is a minister of God with its rebuke and chastisement and sorrow. God will turn the ‘might have been’ into a wonderful culture for the future.”

Father, when those memories come, of the times when I failed to be obedient and doors were forever closed, let them minister to me to the possibilities of the future, rather than wallowing in them and proclaiming, “Oh, I wish . . . how could things have been if only . . .” There is no “if only.” Let the “might have been” become, instead, “what will be.”

Come, Lord Jesus!

Grace and peace, friends.