Praise and Prayer

An update on our search for a new employee and big praise to report: We have hired someone to fill the position! She starts work with us in a couple of weeks. (As it turns out, she was the one we met for the interview at 7 a.m. last week, so yes, the interview was indeed worth getting up early for!)

Thanks to all who prayed about the ever-stressful hiring process. I ask for your continued prayers as I step into a managerial role again, after a few years of only managing myself (and sometimes just barely, at that!). I know that God has placed me in a position of authority again for a reason, and I am trusting Him to fill me with wisdom for being a good manager.
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Last night at Bible study, we talked about how we often feel much closer to God when we are going through a valley experience. Sometimes when we're experiencing a bit of a spiritual dry spell--nothing really "wrong", just somewhere between a valley low and mountaintop high--we struggle to feel God's presence and love.

Just as a shepherd carries a lame sheep until the sheep has healed enough to walk on its own, so our Father carries us close to Him in times when we don't have the strength to walk on our own accord. None of us enjoy going through the valley times, but we discussed how it is almost a bittersweet experience to come out of that valley, knowing that we're losing some of that closeness to God. Certainly God still leads us in every stage of life, but sometimes it seems that our times with Him are fresher and more intimate when we're in the valley.

My prayer for you today, regardless of whether you're in the valley, wandering through the dry desert, or on the mountaintop:

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:16-19)