November 2020

Dear Family and Friends

It is the 5th of November and England has started their second full lockdown due to an increase of Covid-19 cases and the United States is still waiting to see who will become the next president. It’s interesting times!

London woke up to an eerie and quiet foggy day. It’s almost as if the day is peaking out slowly to see what is going to happen in this next lockdown. For me, my goal is to hold onto JOY. I feel there is a fight for our joy at the moment in the midst of so many dealing with unemployment, furlough, mental health, family health, loneliness, zoom exhaustion, disappointment of holidays, birthdays and weddings being cancelled – the list goes on!

I have recently been doing a few studies on Joy and it has helped me so much that I thought I would share a bit of one with you in this letter:

“The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.” Zephaniah 3:17

Zephaniah 3:17 provides a constant source of joy by revealing insight into the heart of our loving, heavenly Father. It’s a joy that can only come from a fresh, tangible revelation of your heavenly Father’s overwhelming love for you.

“The Lord your God is in your midst.” You can have joy today because your God is totally and powerfully present right where you are. Scripture says that he will never leave you or forsake you. You can have joy because you are not alone in anything you do. God longs to make his presence known to you in every area of your life. He longs to do life with you—equipping you to live with total joy by filling you with his love every minute of every day.

“The Lord your God is . . . a mighty one who will save.” You can have joy because you have been totally redeemed from the destitution of the world that surrounds you. You have been offered to spend eternity with the God of love who laid down his own life for yours. Your God has done a mighty work. You are now his child, healed and set free through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

“He will rejoice over you with gladness.” You can have joy because your God rejoices over you. You are not a failure in his eyes. He loves who you are. He longs to fill you with the knowledge of his gladness today. He longs to give you a revelation of how deeply in love with you he is. He rejoices over you as his creation. You are not a mistake. You were made intentionally because your God longed to have relationship with you.

“He will quiet you by his love.” (this really touched me!) You can have joy because your God will shepherd you to the still waters. His love will guide you to quiet places where your heart can be at rest. He will calm the areas of your life that are burdened and stressed by freeing you with the depths of his affections. You can have peace today in the presence of your heavenly Father no matter what situation you find yourself in. Your God will “quiet you by his love” as you follow the leadership of his Spirit.

“He will exult over you with loud singing.” To exult is to be joyful or jubilant because of a triumph or success. You can have joy today because your God sees you as a triumph. You are transformed and a new creation. You are what God has most desired in the earth. God exults over you today just as you are. He wants to give you ears to hear his “loud singing” that you might have the same perspective for yourself as he has for you.

May you come to the awareness of how deeply you are loved by your God today. And may Zephaniah 3:17 be a foundation on which you experience the overwhelming joy that comes from God’s inexplicable love for you. You can find this full study on joy on YouVersion at https://www.bible.com/en/reading-plans/4843.

Thank you so much for all that you do!

Loads of Love

Traci