Back to the Blog

I quit blogging a while back when I thought I had things a tad more figured out.  I was teaching a life group at my home church, Lakepointe and they wanted me to blog every other week on the class website.  I thought God was through with me on the 'retreat' cycle and was going to hunker down and minister locally through my church.  Lo and behold after 20 months, He moved us to Dallas - FAST!  You can't figure God out.  He is mysterious and beautiful with plans that are too high and too lofty for us to know.  So now, at this stage of the game - with no home church (we are looking!) - and retreat opportunities opening up again, I decided to recharge the blog.

I have been looking at all the precious little children starting back to school on my facebook feed.  The last two days have been so fun and really all I noticed were the smiles and new clothes and how much they had all grown.   I thought about how old this was making me - smile.  But today I remembered something.  That tight-chested, hard-to-breathe feeling that came from letting my babies out of my car/care into that building.  That out-of-control fear that threatened to cause me to yank them back into the car by the hair on their heads and speed off to some deserted island and raise them in a monastery.  Of course, I never did and I somehow survived.  

I distinctly remember having a godly older woman (she was probably younger than me!!) come to my house and listen to me bawl my eyes out when Brandon went to college and I lamented to her, "How did you survive this?  Will I ever be alright?"  She (this is the honest truth) looked me straight in the eye and said, "Well, I guess so because I'm here."  Had I not been in the throes of a major meltdown I might have throttled her - I mean, laughed.

Anyway, all this to say.......LIFE.  It keeps moving.  Things change.  People grow.  They change. They adapt.  Or should I say - WE.  

All to often we look at 'those' children.  'Those' new clothes.  'Those' experiences and forget 'they' are 'we.'  We have our own journey.  Our own experiences.  Our own movement forward. And we all have those moments of paralyzing fear, dramatic despair or mountaintop highs.  None of them last.   

So I pray this is an encouragement to you today.  Don't let wherever you are today determine your destination.  You are on a great journey and you only see a part of it.  There is a passage of Ps. 139 that has been a lifesaver on many an occasion to me.  It says this:

"Even the darkness is not dark to Thee."

Wherever you are today - God sees.  It's not dark to Him.  So what do you do when you can't see and someone else can?  You just hold on.  Beloved, He has you.  Don't worry about what you need to do or say or where you need to step.  Just hold out your hand.  Do it now.  He sees.   He loves you.  He has a plan for your life that is for good.  

Trust Him.  He has you.  It's not dark to Him.  Let Him be God.  Be like those little children on facebook.  They too have no clue what this school year holds for them.  What their teachers will be like.  But look at their little faces - full of hope and trust and expectancy.  Let them be our examples.

"Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven."  Jesus