God Redeems It All

Even though the sky is now turning from dark to light gray, I can hear the birds out in the trees singing their little hearts out. They must have heard the news that spring will come six weeks early. The past few days have been in the high 70s to low 80s and I can feel the drain on my energy level. For PT tomorrow we are working outside. Thankfully, it will be cooler and the sun is supposed to be out.

When you are kind of home bound you find all kinds of things to think about and in some cases with this extra time, I've been able to go through a few things, very few, that didn't get taken care of during the week, the only week, I was to be here in January. Well, of course, now it is February. Yesterday I read a devotion by Wayne Stiles; Why Your Path Forward Leads Backward. I felt it appropriate to address in my view a step backwards for getting on the road forward back to the place I love but as I read "our limitations only frustrate us when we forget that in weakness we glorify God." This whole broken hip thing smacked of setback to me early on but slowly I began to understand that I need to live faithfully where He has me now and in the future. Wayne suggests three things we experience in those seasons where it seems we are moving in reverse...

• To strengthen our character in spite of our weakness
• To develop our peace of mind by trusting Him in chaos
• To teach us that we can glorify Him just as much by waiting on Him as we can by serving Him

I have shared with several friends that I believe God is doing something in me so that when this season has ended and a new one begins, He will have done a good work in me that probably I would have never slowed down to realize....even with the slower pace of life in NC. Back to the verse I referred to yesterday about living a small life, and Paul reminds them your life isn't small, you are choosing to live it that way. Again it seems ironic that being in Houston where the thought would be big city, big life it is actually big city, small life. There are many more variables at least for me here that contributed to me making the choice time after time of living a small life. So many times I let the chaos determine my choices. During some of those hard, small years it was easier to join in the chaos and try to do work or make changes in the midst of it because everyone else was inside the circle of chaos. Chaos becomes a habit and serves us but at a very high price. Chaos appears in different forms, messiness, procrastination, perfection, projecting an image that may or may not be the truth, always looking busy by playing with a smart phone or if you're old school shuffling papers, and being the teachable moment person even though you haven't any idea of what is really happening. Please save me from being in chaos with a teachable moment person! 

One night in the hospital when Roy had returned to the hotel to rest because the next day began early I thought and prayed through so many things. An example of God's provision, I had packed some things to bring here that I never pack and wondered why at the time I was packing them. Sure enough, things that would be needed for this extended time in Texas. I no longer think or ponder on the why of things growing up but there in a moment of thankfulness I saw that being forced into being an independent child, with little to no support in life decisions since the age of five, had prepared me well. Granted it brought some heartache and sorrow as I grew up but I wasn't afraid there in Lafayette by myself when I tripped and fell. God redeems it all.