The source of lasting joy

Happy Thanksgiving, my love. I hope you did not spend the day alone. I was saved from that fate by a family in my church that extended a warm invitation to their afternoon dinner. My contributions to the event were a sweet potato soufflé (hurrah for a successful attempt at a new recipe!) and accompanying the hymn-sing time after dinner. I think that I would probably have been fighting back the tears if I had not been busy at the piano, for I have felt an acute sense of loneliness this entire week. At my church's Thanksgiving service last night, the pastor spoke on Daniel 6:10. One of the points he brought out was that Daniel continued giving thanks to God despite adversity, and one of his applications was that we are to thank God for hearing our prayers, even when His answer is No. My own heart rebuked me for my recent bitterness toward God for the path of singleness I am having to travel. I resolved to consciously thank God for his "No" answer to my prayers for a husband, trusting that in His wisdom He is still working His sovereign will for my life. Perhaps He is working behind the scenes to bring you and me together. But even if I never meet my "someone," His way is still perfect. I was challenged to continue to look only to the Lord for true and lasting satisfaction. And it was with those thoughts on my mind that I requested "God is the Treasure of My Soul" this evening during our time of singing:

What though no flow'rs the fig-tree clothe,
Though vines their fruit deny,
The labor of the olive fail,
And fields no meat supply?

Though from the fold, with sad surprise,
My flock cut off I see;
Though famine pine in empty stalls,
Where herds were wont to be?

Yet in the Lord will I be glad,
And glory in His love:
In Him I'll joy, who will the God
Of my salvation prove.

He to my tardy feet shall lend
The swiftness of the roe;
Till, raised on high, I safely dwell
Beyond the reach of woe.

God is the treasure of my soul,
The source of lasting joy;
A joy which want shall not impair,
Nor death itself destroy. 

(Scottish Psalter, 1880 -- Paraphrase of Habakkuk 3:17-18)

My dear one, perhaps you know these same thoughts where you are in life right now. Keep looking to God, and "glory in His love," for He is the "source of lasting joy"!