"Hello Stefanie, This is God."

Oh it's been one of those days...the kind where God decides to teach you a valuable lesson. What lesson is that? Irony is cruel.

My pastor asked me to give the children's message today in church, I happily agreed. He then told me, I'll be discussing God and the Tsunami. First thought that ran through my mind: are you friggin serious? How do I even come close to explaining the Tsunami and why bad things happen to preschool aged children? Through the object lesson of pearls of course. Do you know how pearls are made? 
Well oysters get grains of sand stuck in them sometimes. It's very painful and the oysters can't do much to make it go away so, they ooze this gooey stuff that coats the sand over and over until it turns into a beautiful pearl. bingo. Do bad things happen in our live's because God wants them to? No! They happen because satan is in the world warring against God. We can't just get the bad out of our lives right? Nope, God gives us some stuff to ooze into our hearts just like the pearl- His love. He takes the bad and over time keeps coating it and turns it into something beautiful that is used for His glory.
Now, how is this irony? Because I just spent the past 15 minutes whining in a blog update about what I am unhappy about. (Don't worry, I deleted it.) When God's irony blasted me full in the face.

"Hey, what did you talk about this morning? I promise to be with you and give you strength. You are the one not coming to me."

Now, I've always imagined God's voice as a "James Earl Jones" kinda voice but this one wasn't. It was God's heart mixing with my inner voice yelling at me to wake up and smell the roses.
How many times have I felt like giving up? How many times have I been frustrated and broken only to come back to God and have Him take care of me and provide for me. How many times have I backed away from Him and blamed Him? Too many that's how many.

So, tonight as I'm angry, frustrated, lonely and hurting, I want to encourage you to find your strength in God and not in friends, family, your self, etc. His strength over powers anything we could ever imagine. I know God will get me through all the worries I have, I just have to let Him.