The wait

My sister-in-law said I needed to write about this, so here goes:

I've never been great at waiting, but have learned to do so. In restaurants, I've always been mortified at my mother calling across the room at the waiter or my father holding his cup up to show everyone the emptiness. In lines, I will stand there and have a million complaints running through my head, but never give voice to them. In most situations I would rather wait than draw attention to myself or someone else. In other situations(this has only happened a couple of times, thankfully), I have little to no patience. I think back on the marvelous swiveling tree stand that I bought a couple of years ago. I don't really remember what the whole point of it was, but when you "easily" assemble it, it makes Christmas life wonderful for you. In my case, the "easy" assembling didn't go so well. It turns out that its prior assembly wasn't quite right, but I didn't know that at the time. After a while of messing around with it, I lost my patience and tried to beat it into submission. That did very little to solve the situation and my younger sister looked a little frightened and decided it was time to go home.

And now I am waiting for something to happen which I have absolutely zero control over. I was supposed to leave the states for Odessa in little over a week. But due to a change of law, I need to do all of my visa work prior to entering the country. This delays my departure and leaves me not knowing exactly when I will leave. And the fun part of that is that I have to exchange my plane ticket without knowing if I will have all of my paperwork in time. In a situation like this, I tend to pull inside of myself, because it's easier than having to answer a lot of questions for which I have no answers. Honestly, that's probably why I haven't written about it yet. Even though I know the delay is probably not more than a couple of weeks, I don't know it for sure. And after months of working through my thoughts and emotions of this decision, I felt completely ready to move. After all, everything was planned out: finish training, go home for six weeks, move to Odessa.

But God had different plans than mine, as He often does. He has changed the timing of my departure and is allowing me to learn other things while I'm home. My sister-in-law challenged me recently to stay in the present and not move on in my mind. I know that I've already moved on and am having to do some back-tracking now to be here mentally and emotionally. I'm trying to stay engaged and focus on the people around me. That is my challenge for the moment and I know that I've failed in it over and over in the last month that I've been home. But I am growing and learning through all of this, as He reveals more and more of Himself to me. I am so thankful for His patience, which is never exhausted and His love that is poured out on me more abundantly day by day.

"Make me hear joy and gladness, That the bones You have broken may rejoice." Ps. 51:6

It's gonna be a bright, sunshiny day

As I was walking home from the coffee shop a few minutes ago, I saw an older man sitting in the doorway of a barber shop watching the traffic go by. I smiled and said good morning and he grinned back and said, "You gonna make a lot a people happy today!" I replied, "Oh, I hope so!", and kept walking. As I walked I thought about his enthusiastic comment and smiled. What a wonderful thing it would be if each of us could make it our goal each day to make a lot of people happy. In my words and deeds today, I hope that the joy of my Lord shines forth and I am able to bring glory to my Creator by making a lot of people happy.

Faithfulness

Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father,
Morning by morning Thy mercies I see,
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided,
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me.

I am currently thinking about God's faithfulness, as shown to me from the wisdom of the Proverbs. He has given everything that I need and reminds me of that on a daily basis. Perhaps I'm different from most people, but I've found that I have to spend ample time with God on a daily basis to even attempt to maintain what He's teaching me to be. If I don't do this, I immediately revert to an overwhelmingly selfish state of existence. I kind of think of this as my lifeline. It's a lifeline to becoming more like Him and less like myself. Myself is not something I enjoy reflecting on, though He is calling me to do so more and more as He reveals more of my sin nature to me. It's disturbing to understand even just a wee little bit of what a sinful creature I am. I am coming to have a great appreciation for men like George Mueller who rose before dawn to spend hours with God before facing the world. What I am beginning to grasp about these "heroes of the faith" is that they didn't do this to be holy, they did it because they understood their own unholiness. They understood that they were nothing apart from God and that they couldn't begin to face their very own sin nature and the world with all its difficulties without spending ample time with their holy and perfect God. I don't know what "ample" time is and am guessing there is no such thing. But for me at this moment, ample time is the time required for me to commune with my God in such a way that I come out feeling totally refreshed and ready to take on the day through the enabling of His Spirit. So, from the Proverb of the day:

Proverb 16

vs. 1- The preparations of the heart belong to man,
But the answer of the tongue is from the Lord.
vs. 3- Commit your works to the Lord,
And your thoughts will be established.
vs. 9- A man's heart plans his way,
But the Lord directs his steps.
vs. 20-He who heeds the word wisely will find good,
And whoever trusts in the Lord, happy is he.
vs. 23-The heart of the wise teaches his mouth,
And adds learning to his lips.
vs. 32-He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty,
And he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.

The propensity of addiction

I think we need to lobby for a new law, one that enforces the throwing of cigarette butts into an appropriate container. With one caveat, however: it must be squirrel proof. Squirrel proof, you ask? Yes, my friend, squirrel proof. You see, if all God's creatures can't take care of themselves and aren't able to read the sides of the packages warning them of throat cancer and other terrible conditions, who is to be responsible for their poor choices?

Fresh upon the heels of hearing on the news about a poor black lab, who had found and ingested a large amount of marijuana while on his daily walk(leaving him stoned out of his mind), I left the house to walk down to Nova's Bakery for an iced chai. Imagine my surprise, when walking down Thomas Avenue, I spotted a squirrel picking up a cigarette butt. At first, I assumed he was taking it to be part of his nest lining. But stopping to watch, I discovered how very wrong I was. He scampered about 15 feet up a tree, turned to look at me and then proceeded to very enthusiastically begin ingesting his treasured find. That's right, he ate the cigarette butt.

So, I ask you, friend. If this adolescent squirrel doesn't know any better than to eat a cigarette butt, than who will save him from his ignorance?? Will you? Or will you allow him to continue in his errant ways, ingesting second hand tobacco into his tiny little lungs? Can you continue on today, knowing that all over this world, poor hormonal squirrels are sitting at the tops of their trees trying to look cool and killing themselves in the process?

Free the squirrels from substance addiction! Protect your fellow creature!! All of God's creatures deserve clean lungs!! (please feel free to add your slogan)

Opinionated.........Who, Me??

I recently had someone offer the analysis that perhaps my being an opinionated person was a manifestation of covering up the fact that I'm truly lacking self-esteem and don't have much confidence in myself.........................................................................................................................oh, sorry, I was just waiting for the laughter to clear the room. Obviously, this person does not know me very well at all.

You see, my problem is the complete opposite: I have complete confidence in myself in most every way. Yes, we all have something that we're not completely confident about and I'm no different than anyone else. Overall, however, I've always had confidence to spare and have rarely backed away from offering an opinion on something. Some of that comes from growing up in a reading family and having a surface knowledge of many things. Some of it is due to my mother's love of talk radio, which was passed on to me. Add in a general love for learning and a background in Toastmaster's public speaking and, voila!! An opinionated person not afraid to speak up is born.

There are two types of opinionated people, of which both can be quite obnoxious:
*the ignorant opinionated person
*the well-informed opinionated person

I, being the well-informed opinionated person(of course) really struggle being around the ignorant opinionated person. In the past, I have thought it my duty to correct him/her of his ignorant ways and help him see the light. I have been quite helpful in citing references from which I received my information, in the hopes that he too would have the desire to join the ranks of the well-informed opinionated people. But, alas, it appears that the ignorant opinionated person prefers to continue to argue from ignorance.

But then the day came when it dawned on me that though there's nothing wrong with being a well-informed opinionated person, there is something wrong with being so willing to debate the poor ignorant opinionated person. First of all, it's not a fair debate: he doesn't know that he's ignorant and I do. I have the advantage from the beginning. Second, what in the world is the point of this debate? AH! The lightbulb went off: to prove that I'm right, of course. And why is this necessary?? Welllll, it's not. If I'm right, I'm right. The truth doesn't change, regardless if I can prove it to the other person, or not. The truth remains the same. And so, another layer is removed in this ongoing purification process as I seek to speak words of truth in love.

"In the multitude of words sin is not lacking,
But he who restrains his lips is wise." Proverbs 10:19

Thoughts for a new year

"As for me, I shall see Your face in righteousness;
I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness." Ps. 17:15


A million thoughts float through my head on this, the second day of my thirtieth year(technically my 31st, as my grandmother so kindly reminded me). Am I where I thought I would be and does that even matter?

"I will bless the Lord who has given me counsel;
My heart also instructs me in the night seasons.
I have set the Lord always before me;
Because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved.
Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices;
My flesh also will rest in hope." Ps. 16:7-9

The answer is no to both questions. I thought I would be playing full-time in an orchestra and though I've never been worried or anxious about it, I suppose I thought I'd be married by now. I quite honestly couldn't have imagined that at the age of 30 I would be leaving the people and profession that I love so much and moving overseas to work with a mission. But I'm fully confident that God's plans for my life are so much better than any I can make for myself.

"You will show me the path of life;
In Your presence is fullness of joy;
At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore." Ps. 16:11

So, to borrow a quote from a friend,

"Life is not what I had planned......
It's so much better than anything I ever expected!"