In His arms

Choosing to SEE, by Mary Beth Chapman...painful, humorous, encouraging, challenging...both times I have read it, I have ended with a more earnest desire to share the hope I have in Christ with others, to trust Him wholeheartedly with the challenges He brings our way, and to rejoice that though a mess, He loves me.  Here are a couple of excerpts that I could identify with:

"Most people I know are quite fond of the apostle Paul, not because he was a superachiever who spread the gospel throughout the known world, but because he realized that his pains and limitations were what kept him dependent on Christ...He said that we carry around the knowledge of Christ like a treasure in 'jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.  We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies' (2 Cor. 4:7-10 ESV)."

"I take a perverse pleasure in so many of the Psalms, and I am so absolutely grateful to God that He would include the wild writings of a guy like David, who clearly had his ups and downs.  I can relate with the pain and great sweeps of melancholy in the Psalms.  But I can also relate with the way David always returned to his hope in the Lord.  His pain was real, but so was his hope. And in spite of being slightly crazy, David know that the Lord God Himself knew him before he was born.  He is the One who will cause our stories to ultimately end secure and well, right in His arms."