Diane

This is Diane. She is the sweetest, bravest, most dependable, selfless person I know. Within five minutes of meeting her I just knew that we were going to be friends. I was right. Now three years later and despite the 30+ year difference in age, she is one of my dearest friends. Being around her makes me a better person.
Diane has been through more than any typical person could handle, but she has faced it all so bravely... with her shoulders back and her head held high and with such tremendous faith. Through a devastating divorce, through losing her home and all of her belongings to a fire, through moving across the country and building a new life, through dealing with the messy aftermath of the divorce, through her new (and wonderful) husband going through months and months of unemployment, through losing her job herself, through spending a year in and out of the hospital, through surgery and a long recovery, through losing her job again, through being miles and miles away from family & home, through friends hurting her, through family hardships, God has been faithful and she has trusted him. Sometimes I look at her and marvel at how strong she is. Her eyes are always twinkling, she is always smiling, always laughing. I don't think that she would ever call herself brave. She thinks she is anything but brave. But I disagree. She is the perfect kind of courageous: not haughty or boastful. She just quietly waits on and trusts in her heavenly Father to provide for her needs. And he does....every time. Big surprise there--right??
She is who I was thinking of when I wrote this. Even in the midst of unemployment and uncertainty of what the future held, she gave. She gave and she gave and she gave some more. I remember one time she said in passing that a friend of ours was struggling and so she went through her closets and pantries and brought food and clothes over for her and her kids. She didn't have a job, most people would call what she did irresponsible. But, I call it big, crazy, radical faith. She did what she does so well: Love. She saw a need and without thought to herself, she met that need.
I want everyone I know to meet her. I want to introduce her to people that have doubts about Christianity, and say, "See how amazing and good an awesome she is? That's because the God that created and saved her is perfectly amazing and good and awesome."

Her life is such an inspiring testimony of who our God is. I love this woman dearly. I hang out with her hoping that some of her goodness will rub off on me.


She gave me this pretty little bracelet last night. <3

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Morning & Evening by Charles Spurgeon ~ March 4th, 2013~

“My grace is sufficient for thee.”

2 Corinthians 12:9

If none of God’s saints were poor and tried, we should not know half so well the consolations of divine grace. When we find the wanderer who has not where to lay his head, who yet can say, “Still will I trust in the Lord;” when we see the pauper starving on bread and water, who still glories in Jesus; when we see the bereaved widow overwhelmed in affliction, and yet having faith in Christ, oh! what honour it reflects on the gospel. God’s grace is illustrated and magnified in the poverty and trials of believers. Saints bear up under every discouragement, believing that all things work together for their good, and that out of apparent evils a real blessing shall ultimately spring—that their God will either work a deliverance for them speedily, or most assuredly support them in the trouble, as long as he is pleased to keep them in it. This patience of the saints proves the power of divine grace. There is a lighthouse out at sea: it is a calm night—I cannot tell whether the edifice is firm; the tempest must rage about it, and then I shall know whether it will stand. So with the Spirit’s work: if it were not on many occasions surrounded with tempestuous waters, we should not know that it was true and strong; if the winds did not blow upon it, we should not know how firm and secure it was. The master-works of God are those men who stand in the midst of difficulties, stedfast, unmoveable,—

“Calm mid the bewildering cry, Confident of victory.”

He who would glorify his God must set his account upon meeting with many trials. No man can be illustrious before the Lord unless his conflicts be many. If then, yours be a much-tried path, rejoice in it, because you will the better show forth the all-sufficient grace of God. As for his failing you, never dream of it—hate the thought. The God who has been sufficient until now, should be trusted to the end.