Do You Mean It?

Abundant Life---Guthrie 
[paraphrase--changed person to third rather than first person--harder to read to me that way]

From His abundance we have all received one gracious blessing after another. Jn 1.16 -----¹⁶ Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given.
When you ask Him to bless your plans....[do] you really know what you are asking for. Yo be blessed is to experience God and know more of Him. To ask Him to bless your life and your efforts is to invite Him into the center of them. That is the essence of blessing, the joy of it. Oh, how He longs to bless us. He wants to share from His abundance one gracious blessing after another 
To be blessed is to be deeply content in Him. It is to make your home so securely in God that nothing can shake you. You can be blessed  in the midst of a miserable situation, because being blessed doesn't mean you have no troubles, struggles and sorrows; it doesn't mean you always experience success and comfort. Instead, it means that in the midst of the trouble or struggle or sorrow, you find yourself deeply secure, profoundly content and happy in God----that is the essence of blessing.

Last night was an amazing God moment. I do not have them to this point very often, and I am still somewhat floored.
I have not had bad anxiety with my RA...mainly because I was either too nauseated to HAVE anxiety, or the fact that pain medications do work on anxiety.
But....my pain was worse. The swelling was worse...the longing to be a "normal" person again was profoundly drowning me to the point of misery worse than the pain in my knee and feet. So, quite literally, since emotional pain lights up pain centers in the brain like a Christmas parade...I was full body pain and misery.  
I kept half-heartedly trying to do things. Go out in the sunshine, try and move about some of that swelling. Didn't really sit and do my Bible studies, mainly because my hands were killing me, and I couldn't get notes down. 
It was a hard RA day. 
The whole day settled a little with the arrival of my mother, bearing RA friendly gifts. Gel cushions to add to pens and pencils! Oh, thank you! A new mandala coloring book! A fancy pencil sharpener! And some glitter glue, although I am not sure how to utilize it on copy paper...I have wanted to wood burn mandalas--I could use the glitter there. But I digress, this is not the main topic.

My big God moment was my trying to sleep...sleep which really has not come; I am not even super tired, and take short little naps....I am hoping it is my Enbrel shot working. 
I was stretched out on the couch, every pillow, cushion and blanket settled just so, and yet, there it was. Terror. Panic attacks. The inability to breathe or swallow. I know how to ignore these symptoms and work through them, but there were especially bad. I finally scribbled out in my prayer book Help me...although it was in a journal entry. I began to write out verses since the cushions made it easier to write...and about ten minutes later this song entered the view:
God of Wonders 

 [Chorus:]
God of wonders beyond our galaxy
You are Holy, Holy
The universe declares your Majesty
And you are holy holy
Lord of Heaven and Earth
Lord of Heaven and Earth

What is amazing is that I was not reading passages similar to that...and yet my terror left me and did not return for the night. 
God really does care about us. His Spirit helped carry the load with me (fear), and the load was so quickly dumped into the refuse pile that He and I celebrated Him. It really was an amazing moment for me, and I am so thankful that He helped me out. Just by throwing a favorite praise song into my heart, and my belting it out. I imagine it made any evil spirits cower...lost another victim for the time being. Praise God.