LANDMARKS

When asking for directions, many times, people will use, north, south, east and west, which is helpful but if you’re like me, I get confused with north, south, east and west and so I’ll ask if they can please give me a landmark. A store on the corner, or a street sign, or something that stands out along the way, so that I know I’m heading in the right direction.

As I often do in the early morning hours, I was awakened to the thought that there are specific landmarks in life.

Our birth is a beginning landmark. It’s a pivotal moment in our lives that we remember throughout our life every time we celebrate a birthday.

First day of school, is a landmark. Then there’s middle school and high school and graduation those are landmarks.

The birth of a sibling, becoming a mother, father, grandparent. There are other landmarks that are not as happy like the death of a loved one, we never forget those landmarks they stay with us for life.

Major decisions like moving to an unfamiliar place; career change; marriage; divorce these are all landmarks.

But the most important landmark of all is when you meet the Lord Jesus Christ for the very first time and your life is changed forever.

In that one distinct moment when your spirit-born, into a whole new family. God’s family. That’s when all the other landmarks in your life diminish and you become a brand-new soul.

This landmark for me, took place in 1960. I was six years old that was fifty years ago. Five years later when I was eleven, I was filled to overflowing with the Holy Spirit and received my prayer language. That was fifty-five years ago.

I’m now 66 years old. I can look back and see all the landmarks since my salvation and the story I lived was pretty amazing, intense, difficult and at times I wondered if I would survive. Every life is filled with brokenness and unfulfilled dreams but we don’t have to stay in that condition. With Jesus, there is hope. Hope for a future. I think about divine moments where God allowed people to speak anointed words into my life. These are landmarks too.

Every life has a story, some are longer than others because some die before their story can ever be lived, it’s a short story but there is a reason and a purpose even then because they touch the lives of the people they come in contact with.

Throughout my story, I can see, at this time and place God’s hand leading me, guiding me, directing me. The struggles, the trials, the heartaches, the victories, the defeats. The joys and the tears have all brought me to this time and place in my life.

Landmarks, I can know and understand, that as I fully surrender to the LORD’s plan, I see him moving in a great and mighty way.

Marrying Bob was a landmark in my life. Before my mom passed away, she’d say, “Marla, your later years will be greater than your former years.” That was prophetic because it has come to pass.

I’ve had to lay my former life on God’s altar and let him cover it in his precious blood. Many times, I’ve cried and regretted many things in my life. But as I remember my mom’s words now, I can see God has been with me through everything that has happened and his peace fills me with contentment and joy.

In our lives we will make many choices but when we learn to take the decisions we make to the Lord in prayer, he is ever faithful to give us wise instruction. If we will follow what his word says and do what he says to do…our life will be a landmark for him. He’ll give us beauty for ashes. He’ll give back what the cankerworm has eaten, (what the devil has stolen) …he’ll make our enemies to be at peace with us. He’ll give us favor with God and man. He’ll take the broken, lifeless, destructive lives we lived and heal us and bring us to wholeness. All God asks is for our heart. Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart.

I am leaving this landmark when my life is fulfilled here on this earth.

It’s that Jesus Christ the son of the living God resides within me. When you see me, I want you see Him. He, Is, The Landmark! Follow him and he’ll make your latter years, greater than your former years.

Be the landmark for others, so that when they go looking for directions, they will see Jesus clearly.

~Marla Shaw O’Neill February 5, 2020

Isaiah 61:1-3 New International Version (NIV) The Year of the Lord’s Favor The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion—to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.

Joel 2:25 King James Version (KJV) And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpillar, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you.

Proverbs 16:6-8 Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB) Wickedness is atoned for by loyalty and faithfulness, and one turns from evil by the fear of the Lord. When a man’s ways please the Lord, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.

1 Samuel 16:7 English Standard Version (ESV) But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”