Six Months Ago...

...was not Friday the 13th. But it was the beginning of a journey for me.

And I had no idea I was beginning. None whatsoever.

Six months ago was the day before Valentine's Day, which just happens to be a day that has been endured in a variety of moods by Yours Truly. Some years I've worn all black and drowned my sorrows in a Dairy Queen Blizzard. Some years I've worn red on purpose and looked for ways to show love to those around me. Some years I've stayed home and scrapbooked.

This year, since it fell on Sunday, I decided to celebrate the day by inviting some college students over for a home-cooked meal. I spent most of the 13th feverishly cleaning up my house and cooking far more food than four people could ever hope to eat in two days, let alone one meal.

And late that night, with a hard day of work behind me, I snuggled down into my fleece (yes, fleece!) sheets and spread out the array of journals and books that I consult each night before going to sleep.

One of the books I am reading on a daily basis this year is Streams in the Desert.

I read this book close to ten years ago - in the original version. The King James-esque version. I don't remember precisely what happened in my life that year, but I remember being very touched by the words as I worked through some difficult days.

A couple of years ago, I found a stash of updated version copies at a bookstore that was going out of business. I bought every copy they had and have been giving them for gifts along the way. I had an extra copy still lurking in the closet, so at the end of December, I decided I'd read Streams again this year. (Like that? I decided? God was so behind that decision!)

If you've not read Streams, let me tell you that (in addition to the Bible) it's the book you want to read during life's hard times. The original book was compiled by L.B. Cowman, who was the wife of missionary Charles Cowman. According to the foreword in the original version copy I own, the book was first published in 1925, and contained "thoughts, quotations, and spiritual inspiration which had helped to sustain Mrs. Charles Cowman during her years of missionary work in Japan and China - particularly the six years she nursed her husband while he was dying."

Jim Reimann edited the updated edition, and in his introduction, he shares that he was contacted by Zondervan to take on this project just two days after his son, Aaron, had surgery for a massive brain hemorrhage. He also shares in his foreword that as he worked on the update, he found the days' devotional thoughts to be providential for his situation.

Amen.

I typically hate devotional books. This is one of only two I've read in my entire life that I think has incredible substance. And while I realize the Bible is the only Divinely inspired book...I think this one was definitely Divinely ordained.

And that night...February 13, 2010...as I cracked open the book and scribbled down a quote from it into my journal, I had absolutely no idea how Divinely ordained the words were for my immediate future, nor how the reaction I half-heartedly wrote beside the quote would be taken whole-heartedly by the Lord Almighty.

"Difficulties are sent in order to reveal what God can do in answer to faith that prays and works." And beside it, I wrote, Jesus, give me the desire to have faith and to pray.

Truth be told, I had been living in a deep drought for weeks. Months, even. I wasn't sure I possessed an ounce of true faith, and my prayers really were as pitiful and half-thought as that hastily tossed out sentence shows.

But God heard. And the sentence I'd just quoted from the book was about to manifest itself mightily in my life.