In Awe, of a Divine Appointment

About 8 years ago my family and I were planning to move to sunny Florida from West Virginia. My husband was retiring from the coal mines after 30 years. At that time, I was a stay at home mom but had a degree. Paul asked me, "if you need to get a job in FL, what would you like to do"? I thought and said, "I would like to work in an office, perhaps for a doctor". I  received a position as, help around the office from our chiropractor & friend across the state line in PA, about 25 minutes away. I then quickly went to the front desk position. I had received the training needed for my resume as desired, and another person was hired.

     Several months later I was called back, to work the front desk again. Then some months later, I was given the office managers position. I trained the next person to take over my position as the time came to move to Florida. Then 4 years later the doors in Florida closed, and we moved back to West Virginia, as Paul's mom had given us her home. She had moved into Paul's sister's home, because she needed constant care. Three months later Paul's mother died, on Paul's birthday. We were grateful to God, for the time we were given to spend with her before her passing.

     Later, during Vacation Bible School here in WV, the pastor told us to write on a piece of paper names of those we would like to see come to Christ. God brought to mind my former chiropractor employer and his wife. The very next week, I was called by that employers office. They asked if I could fill in, while the front desk person Mary, had hip surgery. I graciously accepted as a temporary position. Mary came back to work and I was home again. I knew I was suppose to be there because I had the opportunity to witness the entire time.

     Less then a year later, I was called again, this time to see if I would like the office manager position. We prayed and I accepted on a temporary basis. This quickly turned into my current, permanent position. I only work 2 days a week and may bill from home an other day.  

     At one point, I felt God tugging at my heart, so I took out that piece of paper from VBS, that I kept. I showed it to my boss. I told him of VBS and that God had put me there for a reason. He was in awe and agreed it was a divine appointment. I am still praying for he and his wife, God isn't done yet.

    

Making Plans

A song in the works....

"I had it all planned out inside my head
How I wanted my perfect life to be
A perfect house, perfect yard, perfect kids
A man who would be crazy over me"

"But the roof leaks
And the floor creaks
The kids fight all the time
The yard's a mess
I'm feeling stressed
Not what I had in mind
This is not my perfect life"

Although things don't always turn out the way that we imagine them or plan them out in our mind, God definitely has a plan and a purpose for our life. The Bible says that we can make our plans, but it is God who directs and determines our steps. So just because we do not appear to have it all together by the world's standards does not mean that we are not in the exact place where God would have us....surrounded by the people that He has hand-picked to be a part of this amazing journey called life.

As the song progresses it speaks of the moment of realization that what we may see as a disaster is really God's perfect plan unfolding all around us.

"Breathe in, breathe out
 This is not how I thought
 It'd all turn out
 But I realize
 My perfect life's unfolding
 Right before my eyes"........

Proverbs 16:9  "The mind of man plans his way, But the LORD directs his steps." (NAS)

Just Add Baby

Getting my attention is easy, grab a baby.  The Little Couple never interested me.  They seemed like normal people who are short.  Recently they adopted a baby, and now they have my interest.  Ok, Will has my interest.  He's so cute.  Watching this family explode into existence is fascinating, and my heart is strained trying to take it in.  Babies are always a good thing.

Small things aren't always so great.  "Don't sweat the small stuff," is the old saying, but sometimes the small stuff grows.  You think you've got it under control, and it grows another arm.  At the moment friends are battling slow monsters that everyday you expect to conquer and everyday you find a new level of pain, a new mark for the growth chart.  

The worst thing during those moments is that I  can't stop it or fix it.  Most of the time, I can only sit there with them it seems.  It's easy to sit by the phone waiting to hear about a baby's birth.  It's terrible to wait for news of a death, a surgery, a bankruptcy, a loss.  Love comes with both experiences guaranteed.  Love creates lots of small stuff.

Limited

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Limited

To the heavy world whispering

Ugly words on my shoulder:

I cannot be what you want

I can only be me

So…Limited

There are no guarantees

Health disappears in an instant

My fingers cannot keep it from slipping away

Pain rules many days, familiar Tyrant

Making the most of Good days

Still leaves me Lacking

I cannot Plan, nor Count On myself

I am not an Income Machine

So you make me feel Useless

I have given my life Freely

For mine was also a gift

My children are thankful, maybe others,

But you turn up your nose and say,

“Foolish. Stupid. Lazy. Poor. All your fault.”

Dare I turn and reply, “Selfish!” to what you wanted,

Me to live only for me, to earn your “Respect?”

I chose the path to which I was Called

I followed the Will of the Unlimited

Shut your mouth and get out of my mind!

Every time there is a problem,

Do not spew your nonsense and make me

Rue my very Life!  I am not perfect,

But I still belong to the Unlimited

And will listen to His call

As I stumble and reach for His Vision

I will do what He makes Possible

For He will take me Past my Obstacles

Limited only by His Will for me

And there is nothing you can do to stop Him

Needy.

     It is my youngest daughter's third birthday today.  I find that I am so pleased and proud to be her mother.  She is amazing.  However, when birthdays, well any gift giving situation comes up, I consider again what is ...needed.   My daughters between them have ELEVEN, (11), LaLaLoopsy dolls.

AND THEY WANT MORE

     There is a word that has been stretched beyond the limits of my understanding.  This word implies a basic human survival necessity.  The word implies that if we didn't have the item in question, we would die.  This word is NEED.  Several uses have my mind spinning.  

"I need a new purse mine is out of style."

"I need new luggage mine is bulky and large."

"I need some new jewelry."

"I need an espresso from an expensive coffee chain."

"I need to buy designer clothes to match my husband's career."

     I'm not saying I haven't said these things, I'm just saying I'm starting to hear myself now.  I'm starting to listen to myself.  I sound entitled.  I sound like my daughters and their quest to have as many LaLaLoopsy's as appear on the TV show.  I sound....spoiled.

     The Lord has been convicting me to let go of the this world.  He's been asking me to think about others more and my petty wants less.  New and nice things are not wrong to want or to have.  But we must have the right attitude.  I NEED to start seeing thing with right eyes.  "It would be nice, but not necessary, to have...."  and "I want but do not need a....." should start to dominate my speech.  

    My goal is to start thinking much more about the basic human needs of those that do not have them met MUCH MORE, and my own wants MUCH LESS.  This is what I NEED to do.

Your will be done

Christians often pray for the Lord's will to be done. Many times when I am praying for the Lord's will, I have a strong opinion as to how I am hoping He will answer the request. For several years I prayed fervently for the Lord to give us a child. For the first few years I was praying that the Lord would work through the fertility treatments and enable us to conceive. As we pursued first domestic and then international adoption, I was praying that the Lord would bring children into our family through adoption. My husband had wanted us to pursue in-vitro fertilization (IVF) instead of adoption, but I viewed IVF as a big financial gamble and thought pursuing adoption wasn't a financially risky endeavor. In actuality we lost thousands of dollars through our pursuit of adoption. After hitting many roadblocks with adoption, I finally agreed to try IVF. The first transfer of three embryos did not result in a pregnancy. It was very, very hard to accept the Lord's answer to those prayers. A few months later we transferred the one remaining embryo that had been frozen. This time the Lord's will was to give me my heart's desire - a precious baby girl. The next year we did IVF again, and the Lord graciously gave us an energetic baby boy. We did not have any embryos to freeze that time. Last year we pursued IVF for the third time. We thought if it did not work we would accept that our family was complete with two children, and if it did result in another baby, then our family would be complete with three children. Ironically, our third round of IVF resulted in our second baby boy as well as a frozen embryo.

For decades I had dreamt of having three or four children, so one would assume I'd be thrilled to know I might be having a fourth child at the age of 42. As much as I would love to have another baby, I am petrified at the thought of being pregnant again. My first two pregnancies went rather smoothly, but my third pregnancy was an extremely difficult and at times life threatening experience. As we are drawing closer to the time when we will begin the process to transfer our frozen embryo, I find myself constantly flipping back and forth as far as my opinion on how I hope it will turn out. I do not need to have a strong opinion. It's completely in God's hands. This is one of the few times I can sincerely pray "Thy will be done" because I am not sure how to pray. I know He cares about that precious frozen embryo, and He also cares about my life. The best case scenario in my mind is that this transfer would result in an uneventful pregnancy, but His will might not involve another pregnancy or (shudder) it might involve another very difficult pregnancy. I need to "trust in the Lord with all my heart and lean not on my own understanding. In all my ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct my paths." (Proverbs 3:5-6)

First Love

Having been practically born and raised in church, it is sometimes too easy to take for granted my relationship with the Lord.  This week, a friend of my husband contacted him for a lunch meeting because he had had an encounter with God.  This young man had been open to spiritual things, but his philosophy ran more along the lines of New Age thinking. My husband had been taking music lessons from him, and shared a little about his faith with him from time to time when the opportunity arose.  At lunch he told Philip excitedly about how he had encountered the Living God in a "physical, full-body (put me on the ground at the...park) kind of way."  Before, he had just listened politely and commented here and there, but the passion with which he shared his story just made us both smile and remember the initial excitement that we had when we first came face to face with the Creator of the Universe.  We are looking forward to spending time encouraging and supporting this young man as he begins his journey!  I love how his passion helps ours to burn brighter as well.  It's contagious!

I Had a Hmm, Moment.

In my more recent years, God has shown me that the meek will inherit the earth. Meek means, the bit in the mouth of a wild untamed Stallion. I have passions He put within me for many reasons, they are necessary to fulfill my purpose on this earth. However, He has shown me that passions can be misdirected. That it is necessary to allow His bit, to control my mouth.

In the past, I and my daughter were harmed, by things from the pharmaceutical world. This cultivated anger, bitterness and resentment toward the entire world of medicine. My view was horribly distorted and shamefully clouded. My passion was turned toward the natural world.

Then God took me by the hand, and slowly showed me things about the medical world that were good, necessary and helpful to others. He showed me that His own children have been placed within that entity for a purpose. They too were wired, by Him, to do His work to help others. They simply had a different bag of tools, as it were.

I was bewildered. How could a system that has tools that may harm people, also help people, and how could God have His own kids in it? He further showed me. There are substances that do different things in different people. Each person has a different physical, spiritual and mental being, He himself put within each person. He also showed me that the natural worlds choice of tools affect different people differently also. Example: after talking to a herbalist friend, I discovered I needed magnesium to fix my wrestles legs syndrome and heart palpitations. However, I took way too much for my body, and ended up with diarrhea & digestive problems. To fix this, I took mint and backed off my supplementation of magnesium, while adding calcium also. When taking magnesium along with calcium properly, I no longer had heart problems or wrestles legs syndrome. I simply lacked wisdom of how best to use these substances on my own body. But another person, who has little knowledge of the natural world and a bias against it, could have said; "the entire natural world is bad and harmful, it messed you up".

God showed me in His word. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives liberally and without restraint. I had a, Hmm moment. God is The Great Physician, He is not practicing, He knows. He knows every hair on our heads and all the substances He has made, both natural and medical, Hello Sonya! I felt ashamed. Ashamed, that I thought knowledge of natural things could fix anything. Therefore I didn't need God's help, I simply needed full knowledge of what He had made and to use it properly. There I said it. The shameful truth, of what I had allowed anger bitterness and resentment to do to me, my relationship with God and His other children in the medical world. Oh, my Father God, please forgive my arrogance, my sheer stupidity. Please take what I am, and fix me from within to reflect You and the truth of all that You have made.