I hope that you have been able to do this already. Maybe you won't get to celebrate until August, but make sure you take this summer, and make it memorable! None of us have forever here, so I want to make the most of the time I have. I'm sure you do too! My husband wanted to put a white picket fence around our vegetable garden so that our children would have that memory from their childhood.

As far as celebrations are concerned, as God's people we always have much to celebrate! Our God rules the heavens and the earth, and He loves us, wants to see us be victorious over the enemy, and live in the power of His Holy Spirit.  All we have to do is say no! No to our will, our plans, our ideas.

We need to be so convinced that God is who He says He is, and that He will do what He said He will do before we come to the end of ourselves and bend our knee. We convince ourselves that we can't trust Him, and that we know what we are doing. This only leads to our demise. When we give our everything to Jesus, He takes all that He has given to us in the first place and brings it into technicolor. My life was black and white until I met the Lord. Now there is color, life has dimension, and meaning.

I remember life before my relationship with God, and I can see His hand on me, keeping me from some heartaches, and allowing others, and no matter who you are you will have hard times. The difference is whose hand you hold while you go through it, and what they whisper in your ear. "My beloved spoke and said to me, "Rise up , my love, my fair one and come away. For the winter is past the rain is over and done. The flowers appear on the earth; the time for singing has come.  {Song of Solomon 2:10-12}