JULI HERNANDEZ

Episode 62: Psalm 139:13-16

Episode 62: Psalm 139:13-16

September 07, 20226 min read

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Transcription

Before we pray today, I want to read you some more reviews of my book: Yes, Father: A Daughter’s Journey to Forgiveness.

Juli takes us into such raw places with grace and skill to the destination of release and forgiveness. Her story never feels candy-coated while she also respects all the people involved. I enjoyed the format of alternating childhood and adulthood, past and more present. Well done telling such a vulnerable story. I was deeply moved.

Juli has such a gift with words, that I felt incapable of putting this memoir down! She beautifully describes the difficult journey of caring for a parent with Alzheimer’s, but goes beyond to share the grief of a pained relationship between a father and daughter.
I was personally touched by the sibling bond through the years, and the thread of healing from codependency. A very raw picture at learning to trust God with your family members faith, emotions and healing journey.


I read this moving memoir about her father’s care from onset of dementia through his passing. Juli’s honest grappling with how to love her father well encourages us to turn to the God who sees, hears and understands.
I love the cover art, gold-filled cracks as pictures of Juli’s heart fissures filled by obedience and love.

Well done, Juli!

These and other reviews have left me with such a heart of gratitude. I hope they have helped you understand what the book is about, and if you’ve read it and haven’t left a review, I am hoping that you will take the time to do it. Reviews are what help me share this story with people who need to hear it, so I treasure each one. The book is on Amazon or Goodreads if you feel led to do so. And if you haven’t picked up your own copy yet, head on over to my website at www.ja-sellers.com and find the link there.

Okay, now on to our prayer!

Today’s verse is Psalm 139:13-16

For You created my inmost being;
    You knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    Your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from You
    when I was made in the secret place,
    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
    all the days ordained for me were written in Your book
    before one of them came to be.

Let’s pray together.

LORD, today I am marveling at our relationship, how You have been the most integral part of my life, Creator and Founder of my days. I am because of You. I was unformed and You formed me. I was undesigned and You designed me. I am not an accident or an afterthought. I am more than welcomed; I am purposefully invited into relationship with You. And that has been Your thought and Your desire for me from before my own beginning.

I cannot comprehend how You saw me, who I would be, what You wanted for me, before I was born. Before I was even being made inside my mother’s womb, You were making me. You were putting together all that would be me, because You saw what I would be as worthy. You loved me. You do love me still, despite all I have done to mess up Your hard work.

And Your works are wonderful. I see that in the crashing of waves and the glory of the sunset and the cooling breeze of the evening. I see that in the love and dedication and humility of the people I love. I see that in the marvelous blessings You bestow upon us. But Your Word says I should also see it in me. I am one of Your works; I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Each part of me is knit together with such a complex pattern that humanity is still striving to discover it. I have the mysteries of the universe inside of me, but they are not mysteries to You. They are the works of Your hands, done with purpose and skill.

Help me to remember that, when all my life seems stretched out in misery and hardship. When all the world groans with the brokenness of our misdeeds and darkness. When others treat me with less than the dignity of one of Yours. And when I do the same to them. Impress upon my spirit that I am Yours and that I was made for You. You had a path laid out, days numbered and ordained, all before You even started to make me in time. You knew and You rejoiced in me.

The lines of my life, lovingly written, secretly delighted in, are the results of an Author bursting to share a new story with all the rest of His stories. My birth was the release of that story into the world and it is still being read. Only You know the ending, the one from this earth, because my story, like You is never ending. Only You could have written it to begin with. You chose to make me and You chose to handle the whole process Yourself, each part carefully done by the Master Creator.

My life did not start with my first breath. It did not even start with my conception. It started with You, in a secret place, a hidden workshop of wonder. Help me to honor that by trusting You with all the days I live. Help me to find and fulfill the purpose You spent such cares over. Help me to partner with You to walk in worship, in full union and relationship with You, rejoicing over the being of life that I am.

Friends, pray this with me. Understand the richness of your life and the tender workmanship exhibited in your bodies and your world, laid out in a book so individual and personal, written for your good. Be honoring of that life and story in others, understanding how carefully and purposefully God writes each life and takes care of each person. The hurt and pain and wickedness we see are not from Him, not part of the design. We have introduced that ourselves, but we do not have to dwell in it. We have ways to walk that are better, ones that keep us bound to our Creator in love and fellowship. Walk in them. Nothing that happens is an accident. Because we are His.

Jesus, come, be with us since You made us. Read to us our story. Help us glory in it and in You.

I pray this in Your name. Amen.

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