Saying Goodbye

I've been taking Meredith's advice and slowly reading through the stack of encouragment and goodbye cards (and a few sympathy cards- nice touch Calles!) that we received the Sunday we left San Diego. I may not have gotten to read yours yet, but I am grateful for the love and honor you have lavished on us.

Reading the evidences of grace that you point out has drawn me to worship God. I am amazed that the ways you have seen me change and grow are not the result of my great effort or my master plan or my handy schedule. They are not the result of my tireless pursuits of holiness. They are not due to my faithful disciplines.

Instead, the grace you see is due to the Lord faithfully changing me from the inside out. They are things (like loving my husband, serving my family, loving others etc) that feel natural to me, things that I want to do, ways that I enjoy serving the Lord. How exciting to see that the Lord is truly changing my heart and motivating me by his great love for me! How exciting that the areas you point out are often surprises- things I didn't even notice or never considered one of the places I needed to work on. Instead God has been changing me in his own way and truly producing the fruit of his Spirit rather than the fruit of my labors.

Not that it has all been easy. I definitely have seen that his best tool for changing my heart is trial. It has been the hard days that make me depend on him and the hard days that make me need to find out who He really is. And I keep finding Him greater and more glorious and more loving than I ever imagined.

So thank you for pointing out how the Lord has been working in our lives. We praise God for you and we praise God that he is the one working in our hearts. I am convinced it is his work and not ours.