Daniel’s Heart Community,
Thank you for your continued support and for believing in our mission! We simply can’t do this without you!
It seems our world is a bit chaotic right now and reminds us just how fragile life really is. How powerful God is. How small we are. Locust swarms taking out crops, quarantines all over the globe from a virus, homelessness crowding our cities, political upheaval, and sex trafficking at all time highs. The list goes on. If you’re suffering from or caring for a loved one who is walking through illness, disease or physical trauma, what is going on around you may seem dull comparatively and you’re just living moment by moment to survive. That is more than acceptable and normal for anyone walking your path! There’s a hope of heart, friend!
Although we may grieve our current sufferings both personally and around us, it is the remembrance or hope "of what” was for “what is now” that causes us to pause and consider the purposes of our pain and circumstance. In reading through Job, I was challenged with this thought: If we take happiness from God’s hand, must not we take sorrow too? (Job 1:10) It seems this world may hold sorrow, but we aren’t destitute. There’s hope. The promise of Christ and eternity.
Just as Ahaz, in the book of Isaiah, who never lived long enough to see the fulfillment of God’s promise to send a Savior in his lifetime, we too are offered a promise we may never see in our earthly lives but can experience in the promise of Jesus' return to eternity. God uses each of our stories for His glory, even though we may never know how or why things came to be in our lives, we’re called to trust Him no matter what, knowing that God works all things together for His good. How do we have faith in God despite our circumstances?
I’m reminded that gratefulness is at the heart of faith, despite the trials we face of any kind. As Brennan Manning puts it, “When you realize you have received a gift (salvation) you can’t repay, the tenor of your life becomes one of humble and joyful thanksgiving. The root of joy is gratefulness. It is not joy that makes us grateful, but gratitude that makes us joyful. To be grateful for an unanswered prayer, to give thanks in a state of interior desolation, to trust in the love of God in the face of marvels, cruel circumstances, obscenities, and commonplaces of life is to whisper a doxology in darkness.” Gratefulness penetrates a powerful light through our dark days.
How do you find moments of gratefulness to trust our living God with your life? Do you make a list each day? Commit your prayer time solely to giving God the glory in your circumstance? On your drive to work do you speak your thankfulness out loud? I encourage you take space out this month to recognize that your very existence was on purpose. Your life is valuable to God. He cares for you and has a plan for you, until your last breath here on earth and into eternity. Let us value our circumstance(s) as an opportunity to faithfully respond to Him with a joyful heart of gratefulness that exceeds the sufferings of our days.
As you consider your giving each month/year, please keep Daniel’s Heart in mind! We continue to ask that God would put our mission on our communities hearts as we move forward! It truly takes a village to accomplish our goals, and boy do we have some for this year! We’re currently trying to nail down a venue for a fundraiser this fall! I can’t wait to share more as things are confirmed. We have families in need of practical assistance and we want to help them. Our needs continue to grow as we do with practical things like expanding the tools on our website, we’re looking for a graphic designer, and so on. Your partnership to make these goals a reality is crucial! In the heart thanksgiving, we are so grateful to you for joining our heart force to see these needs accomplished this year!
May Christ dwell in your heart through faith. May you be rooted in love and be able to grasp how wide, how long, how high and how deep is the love of Christ. To know this love that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled to the measure of fullness of God. To him who is able to do more than we ask or imagine according to his power that is at work within us - to Him be the glory forever and ever! Amen! (Eph 3)
Gratefully,
Sara, Founder
