I was at the lake last weekend, and though it is a bit under a 4 hour drive…there is just something about being along in a car with your music and the road in front of you. I am one of those people who probably shouldn’t be alone with their thoughts too often, but a long car ride alone helps me put things into perspective.

Ever since I was a little kid, most of my memories from childhood revolve around being at the lake with family. As things do, they change as you get older…and it’s different when we go to the lake now. The smell is still the same, and it is immediately calming. The view hasn’t changed must, save for some taller trees. The water is still wet. But the small people have gotten taller; the older people have gotten greyer and me, well, I am finally at a point in my life where I feel God has me exactly where he has been trying to get me to be content for a long time.

But as mothers and grandmothers do, they say things that get under your skin no matter how content you feel, and those words fester. Which is why on my drive home yesterday, just the right song came on at just the right time…sometimes God uses music to get my head screwed on straight.

‘Offering’ by Third Day rolls around the playlist, and here is what my ears heard:

Magnificent Holy Father
I stand in awe of all I see
Of all the things You have created
But still You choose to think of me

Who am I that You should suffer
Your very life to set me free
The only thing that I can give You
Is the life You gave to me

This is my offering, dear Lord
This is my offering to You, God
And I will give You my life
For it’s all I have to give
Because You gave Your life for me

I stand before You at this altar
So many have given You more
I may not have much I can offer
Yet what I have is truly Yours

This is my offering

That’s what my ears heard, but what my soul heard was that I was bought and paid for with the precious blood of my Savior. Everything I have, everything I am…I am for Him. This song has meant different things to me over the years. Several years ago, it was found me when I was scary short on trip money for a mission trip to Russia. This song renewed my faith in that money shouldn’t be a hindrance when you are responding to a mission call, and that the response itself is an offering to our God that equals none other. My life is truly all I have to give, and that offering is exactly what God wants of us.

Yesterday, this song was reassurance. It is all ok. That God knows where this is going, and I am dearly loved by him. That the only expectations I need to fulfill are the ones God has of me.

‘I may not have much I can offer, Yet what I have is truly Yours,’ I don’t have much to offer…but I can give my life as an offering, and I feel like that makes Abba smile.

//Stephanie//