Thankful November #25
Is your life turning out as you planned?
That question makes me giggle. It probably makes most people giggle. Before coming to Christ I aspired to be a doctor until MSATS chemistry. Enough said.
Then my husband and I got saved and he got called from tending the herd (dairy) to tending the flock (ministry). Definitely not in my plans because that made me a "Pastor's Wife!" I'm not sure I ever really adjusted to that role to anyone's satisfaction. I'm just glad I survived.
Very little in my life has turned out the way I prayed it would or thought it should. What I have learned is I'm not in control. God is. There have been several times when not even that thought was very comforting or encouraging to me because I didn't like the chapters He was writing at the time.
I never read much of Max Lucado's writing until the last couple of years. The thing that fascinates me about his writing is how he starts out with the main thought and takes you so far away from it in a few paragraphs that you can't remember what the thought was. Even if you do remember, you can't imagine how he'll ever bring you back around and make all the detours somehow support his main point. But he always does it in blaring clarity. When it comes to a chapter, he is a master craftsman.
That pretty much describes where I've been for the last 39 years. Unfortunately, it's only been in the last couple of years that I've quit trying to grab the pen from God's Hand and show Him quite plainly that He isn't writing my story in the correct way. God let the chapters get so far from my main expectations that all I could do was cling to Him until He brought me to that point of clarity where it all made sense.
This involved learning to not just say, "I trust God" because that's what us Christians do you know, but to truly learn to trust Him, even in the midst of devastation, chaos, change, and seeming defeat.
Some of my chapters are really ugly and I don't understand why they had to be written, but I trust the author and I know the end of the story. It ends with "They all lived happily ever after."
Today, I'm thankful that God is writing my story.
Is your life turning out as you planned?
That question makes me giggle. It probably makes most people giggle. Before coming to Christ I aspired to be a doctor until MSATS chemistry. Enough said.
Then my husband and I got saved and he got called from tending the herd (dairy) to tending the flock (ministry). Definitely not in my plans because that made me a "Pastor's Wife!" I'm not sure I ever really adjusted to that role to anyone's satisfaction. I'm just glad I survived.
Very little in my life has turned out the way I prayed it would or thought it should. What I have learned is I'm not in control. God is. There have been several times when not even that thought was very comforting or encouraging to me because I didn't like the chapters He was writing at the time.
I never read much of Max Lucado's writing until the last couple of years. The thing that fascinates me about his writing is how he starts out with the main thought and takes you so far away from it in a few paragraphs that you can't remember what the thought was. Even if you do remember, you can't imagine how he'll ever bring you back around and make all the detours somehow support his main point. But he always does it in blaring clarity. When it comes to a chapter, he is a master craftsman.
That pretty much describes where I've been for the last 39 years. Unfortunately, it's only been in the last couple of years that I've quit trying to grab the pen from God's Hand and show Him quite plainly that He isn't writing my story in the correct way. God let the chapters get so far from my main expectations that all I could do was cling to Him until He brought me to that point of clarity where it all made sense.
This involved learning to not just say, "I trust God" because that's what us Christians do you know, but to truly learn to trust Him, even in the midst of devastation, chaos, change, and seeming defeat.
Some of my chapters are really ugly and I don't understand why they had to be written, but I trust the author and I know the end of the story. It ends with "They all lived happily ever after."
Today, I'm thankful that God is writing my story.
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