Christ, He Gives Me Strength

My mantra today.......  "I can do all things through Christ, because he gives me strength."  Phil 4:13  

Think of the favorite things in your home. What do they mean to you?  Why are they important to you?  If Christ asked you to sell your favorite things in order to follow Him, could you do it?  ("I can do all things through Christ, because he gives me strength.")   When I asked you to think of your favorite things, maybe you thought of your bed, your Christmas dishes, your special outfit or your faithful chainsaw?  If Christ asked you to follow Him and leave it all behind - could you do it?  Leave it ALL behind?  Big question, I know.  ("I can do all things through Christ, because he gives me strength.")  I must have repeated Philippians 4:13 a hundred times today.
A few of my dear friends visited today with a task at hand: to price everything for our estate sale. I knew this day was going to be difficult. ("I can do all things through Christ, because he gives me strength.").  As the morning progressed, I began to say to myself, "Ya know, I could put this stuff in storage, I could ask my friend to keep it, WHY AM I DOING THIS!?" ("I can do all things through Christ, because he gives me strength.")  One of my friends helping with the pricing frenzy even said, "Why are you selling your music, I could never do that, why don't you hang on to your CDs?"  I responded, "We won't have a CD player in Kenya." ("I can do all things through Christ, because he gives me strength.")  As the morning turned into afternoon and my friends left, my home was decorated with little yellow price tags and I felt sick.  I kept repeating to myself , "I can do all things through Christ, because he gives me strength."  So this evening, I sit here, feeling weepy and as though I'm morning over a loved one. ("I can do all things through Christ, because he gives me strength.")  All of these memories rolled into these special things, gifts received, tokens of a job well done, dried roses from my Dad's funeral, seashells from a fabulous vacation ("I can do all things through Christ, because he gives me strength.").   BUT, I begin thinking of the people of Kenya and try to focus on their faces; a family in a village in Kenya, a mother sitting with her son. This mother is holding her son and whispering softly in his ear, "I can do all things through Christ, because he gives me strength."  Does she have water to give to her son?  Maybe her mantra is Philippians 4:13 tonight?  Maybe her son is dying of dehydration, cholera or dysentery and she is pleading to God for help?  ("I can do all things through Christ, because he gives me strength.").  I wonder if her diligent prayers are why Christ has called us to Kenya???  Lord, help me to be the answer, help me to not be a child of material things, but a child dedicated to Your people in need. Give me strength to be the answered prayer for this mother and her son.  Lord, please give me the strength to do all things through You.  Lord, give me the stregnth to get to Kenya.
"I can do all things through Christ, because he gives me strength."