All the Days of My Life

I try to share a daily "Text for Today" with my immediate family members via email. The other day I sent them Psalm 139:15-16. As she often does, Cheryl (my wife) shared her insights and response. I am always encouraged by the way God's living Word inspires us to respond. So here are the texts, and Cheryl's insightful response. You can read more of her writings on her blog

"My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be" (Psalm 139:15-16).

"You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something. Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life were spread out before you, the days of my life all prepared before I'd even lived one day" (The Message).

"What does God's train of thought toward me look like? His thoughts would not be idle thoughts, or malicious or scornful. His thoughts are about redeeming my days and making them purposeful. He thinks of how to love me and how to carry me through fires and floods. He takes delight in me--as strange as that seems since I often don't find very much that is delightful about myself.

"He looks forward to the future with me. He forgets my broken past. He fills the present. Every time I awaken to any new form of consciousness about my life He is there. He never stops speaking to me with the voice that is compared to the sound of many waters in the Bible...roaring and murmuring, perhaps like the sound of a river running through a campground at night, He is ceaseless in His thoughts and expressions of Himself to me.

"He is Jesus, who was impossible to ignore while He walked this earth. He is kind, compassionate, confrontational, soft-spoken and angry at sin. He is welcoming. He is gentle and thoughtful, always ready to give an answer to every question, but perhaps in puzzling ways. The conundrums He allows in my life are invitations to me to come closer to Him and learn more.

"Everything He thinks and does about me is meant to draw me more deeply into relationship with Himself and each thought is new, as fresh as the current moment itself. I have never lived this moment before and God is thinking fresh, creative thoughts about me right now. How vast He is. How vast are His thoughts."