Have I Not Commanded You?

Its late. . . again.  So I'm sorry if this comes across muddled but its now or never.

I had a conversation with my brother a week or so before school started.  During the conversation a particular verse came up.  After my brother spoke the verse, I could NOT get it off my mind, or out of my heart.  I kept chewing on it but for some reason, I didn't feel like I was supposed to go read the verse, not yet.

So I continued with my days, growing ever more anxious for the start of school but all the while pondering this verse over and over in my head and heart.  The evening of my last blog entry, everything had come to a head.  I was completely overwhelmed.  The next morning was Labor Day morning and my "last day of freedom."  I woke up in my parent's house, already nostalgic for its sounds, for my hills, for the comfort I feel there and God told me to go look up the verse.

I read through the whole passage and God began to speak to me.  The verse my brother had quoted was Joshua 1:9, "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage."  It's amazing.  I thought about that verse for almost a week, but when I opened God's word and began to read it, God spoke to my heart.  

I felt God's overwhelming affirmation.  "Yes," He said to me, "vet school is really really hard." I began to cry as he validated my fear and touched the bruised places in my heart.  "I haven't called you to something easy but to something very difficult because I KNOW YOU.  I know the strain you can withstand.  You aren't a wimp because you are struggling with this road.  You are strong and THAT is WHY I called you to this hard road and I am asking you to take the full weight of it."  Then He spoke the verse to me again, "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage."  Its not a suggestion.  


All the pain of vet school, all the hurt places changed.  They were blows thrust upon a victim.  They were things to be guarded, cried over, hidden and reasons to feel sorry for myself.  Now they are prizes.  They are strikes received gladly, openly, knowingly and proudly.  They are what shows my obedience to my God's command.


I don't know how many times I will need to be reminded over the next two years to be strong and courageous.  God told Joshua to be strong and courageous 4 times in chapter 1.  Who knows how many more times in the night, when Joshua was full of doubt and fear God reminded him of His command.  What I do know is that skipping to the end, Joshua was strong and he was courageous.