Providence 365, Week 21

Hello, sisters.  This is Barbara, here today with our Providence 365 post for week 21.  It's hard to believe, but 2011 is almost half over!  I pray that you and I will look back on the year with praise for the One who led us through all of its ups and downs, sadness and joy, pain and pleasure. 
For this week, I reflected on Psalm 103:2:

Bless the LORD, o my soul,

and forget none of His benefits.

The Psalmist continues by listing some of those benefits:
-pardon for our iniquities
-healing for our diseases
-redeeming our life from the pit
-crowning us with lovingkindness and compassion
-satisfying our years with good things...


His benefits and mercies are everlasting and without end, promised to us through the finished work of Jesus. They are not dependent on us, weak and changeable as we are.  But, rather, they are sure, flowing from His character, which never changes. 
Recently, I read a letter written in 1567, by a Reformer just a month before his death.  He was in prison, writing to his wife of seven years, the mother of his five children, to encourage her in the face of her certain widowhood: 
I am happy; my heart is light and it lacks nothing in my afflictions. I am so filled with the abundance of the richness of my God that I have enough for me and all those to whom I can speak. So I pray my God that he will continue his kindness to me, his prisoner. The One in whom I have trusted will do it, for I have found by experience that he will never leave those who have trusted in him. I would never have thought that God would have been so kind to such a poor creature as I. I feel the faithfulness of my Lord Jesus Christ.
This man truly believed and lived out Psalm 103:2, not forgetting, even in the direst of circumstances, the benefits of God.  Surely, this is encouragement for our souls as well.
As you go through this week, be looking for the benefits of God, both large and small, in the nooks and crannies of your life.  And, then come back and tell us about what you found!

Please feel free to comment in our forum and post your layouts in our gallery.  Even if you are just starting a 365 project of your own, it's not too late to join in!
You can download the word art HERE.