Janet's Gems

I've had a wee God moment.

I was with a client who I was having lunch with, and he mentioned that he felt 'sad for me' that I have to look after my daughter AND my mother (who NEVER leaves the house). And I thought to myself... that's funny, coz I FEEL SORRY FOR ME TOO! But if he'd said that a day earlier, I don't know what my reaction would have been because of this:

I was reading Catherine the bible and I happened to notice the Israelites found the water 'bitter' so they named the area "Mara" (which means bitter in hebrew)
And then that night I was reading to myself the book of Ruth where Naomi says "don't call me Naomi, call me "Mara" because the Lord has made my life bitter.
And I thought ' what an odd thing to pick up on. I wonder if that's a God-incidence.... naahhh!'
And then during a boring sermon at church I thought, "I wonder if God has anything just for me?" next thing you know the preacher says "Naomi said call me Mara"... and didn't even explain what the word meant... but I sure knew!!
And then that afternoon I was lying on my bed thinking "I think God's silent at the moment. I don't mind... I'll just wait it out. But if God wants to speak He can do it through a secular station because I'm not in the mood for Radio Rhema. Well about 30 seconds after I stick Kiwi FM on (about as secular as you can get), the ad comes on "If you don't get these tickets, don't cry bitter tears"... and I thought BITTER??? how often does that word come up on the radio?? and so I thought "No way!! is God saying I'm bitter??"
(Which at this point I have to add, I've been bitter as hell, but I know God hates complaining, so I kinda just stopped talking to him, and just thought how much I hate my life and there's no future for me.)
So I jumped up and got the bible dictionary, and thought I'd look up either 'bitter' or "mara' to see what it said... but the book FLOPPED open at 'water"... and I thought "ok... I'll read this"
AND GUESS WHAT IT SAID???
"The Israelites found the water at Mara to be BITTER"

You know what's cool about that? God didn't give me verses on Complaining. And He didn't giving me verses on Selfishness. He told me I was bitter. And it says in the Bible that God knows us better than we know ourselves. It's made me alot happier knowing that God didn't condemn me, he just told me... even though I'd stopped talking to him about it.

(PS. The next three days of Word for Today were also on "bitterness"!)